Everything Happens for a Reason?

Over the last few days and weeks, I have heard the expression repeated often which says “Everything happens for a reason.” I know it is a popular statement. I know people use it thinking that they are providing comfort to those hurting. I know that it is cliché for “it will be ok.” Even so, when the person speaking is implying that God is micro managing each person’s life and that the negative action or event is something done by God on purpose for a specific reason in the future, it is false doctrine and should be avoided by Christians.

Let’s think about this in to worldly terms. Do you really think God is micro managing the rapist and that the victim is being violated because of some master plan? Do you really think those 20 babies who were murdered in Newtown were shot to death because of some good thing God is working in their lives or the lives of their families? I could go on and show the foolishness of this argument but these two examples should suffice. As a result of this false belief some within the church have made for themselves a built in excuse: it’s not my fault...God did it. Adam tried that excuse in Genesis 3 and it doesn’t hold water.

It is no wonder that so many people reject believing in God, or believing the Bible, or becoming a Christian, when it is quite obvious that God is not behind the sinful ways of man. This very morning, I listened to a man say that he left the denomination he was a part of because he felt lied to all his life by the phrase “everything happens for a reason.” He said that the young people growing up in that group were not faithful to God because this philosophy that is drilled in to them removes any responsibility they have for their own actions. So he began to seek the truth on the subject. Those who push this foolishness do not understand passages like James 1:13-15: “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God;” for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” God is not causing people to commit rape or murder or any sin!

The issue that brings people to make this statement or those like it is that it is difficult to understand why there is pain, suffering, injury, death, agony, heartache, and sickness in the world. Like Gideon in Judges 6:13, we want to know why these things are happening. Rather than deal with the real issues of sin and the consequences of our behavior, we have come up with a way to rationalize the difficult things in our lives.

The truth is that there are reasons why bad things happen and it is not God’s fault. When things were done according to God’s way, this world was very good (Gen. 1:31). When man tried to do things his own way, it lead to death because we don’t always know or do what is right (Prov. 14:12; Jer. 10:23). Even so, God created us with the ability to choose the course of action we take in life (Duet. 30:19; Josh. 24:15). Because we have the right to choose, we also bring with those choices the consequences for those actions. When a drunk driver takes the life of an innocent family, it wasn’t God but the sin of a man that caused the problem. When 20 precious babies were murdered, it wasn’t God’s plan but man’s evil actions and the devastating results. When someone is diagnosed with cancer it wasn’t God but sin that brought disease into the world. When a good business manager fails even though he did everything “right” it isn’t God’s fault. Let us remember that time and chance happen to us all (Eccl. 9:11). Sometimes bad things happen because we made bad choices. Sometimes it was the bad choices of others, even people who lived long before us. But please, let us not blame God.

An often quoted passage misused frequently to promote this philosophy is Romans 8:28. The passage doesn’t mean everything is going to work out in this life. The context is that everything will work out with salvation of the soul as no matter what happens in life, we can be faithful and nothing can keep us from the love of Christ if we will hold fast. The author of the passage spent years in prison and was executed for preaching the gospel of Christ. Did it work out for him? Yes! Oh, not in worldly terms (Phil. 1:21,22), but in spiritual terms (2 Tim. 4:6-8). Let us live like Paul so that regardless what may happen in our lives we can be content and productive in Christ (Phil. 4:9-13).