Not Everything Happens for a Reason

“I don’t believe everything happens for a reason,” said one of the speakers at a funeral that my husband and I attended a couple of months ago, a funeral that had come about as the result of a tragedy. The speaker explained that accidents happen and he didn’t believe God causes such tragedies, but that God is our source of comfort and strength in such times.

My husband and I discussed this afterwards and have had similar conversations in the past. We feel the same way, that not everything happens for a reason. But this is something people often say, a simple statement to accept whatever comes our way in life. It’s even the opening line to a Christian song that I like – except I don’t like this line.

This statement doesn’t explain away tragedy and other things in life. It isn’t helpful or comforting to those who are hurting, and it can actually make their pain feel dismissed. And like the speaker at the funeral, I don’t believe it’s true. I do believe that God is sovereign over all things and brings good out of bad circumstances. However, I don’t believe that God causes it all.

We live in a fallen world, full of sin and suffering and strife, full of people whom God has given free will. The free will of which, when exercised, caused the fall to begin with. The world is not as God made it to be – we humans messed it up with our choices in the beginning and have continued to do so ever since. And along with our choices come consequences. Sometimes we suffer the consequences of our own sinful choices, and sometimes we suffer the consequences of other people’s sinful choices.

Other times we suffer from natural causes, which can also be attributed to our fallen world – “natural evils” as Christian author and speaker, Lee Strobel, explained this way several years ago:

“These are things like wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes that cause suffering for people. But these too are the indirect result of sin being allowed into the world. As one author explained: “When we humans told God to shove off, He partially honored our request. Nature began to revolt. The earth was cursed. Genetic breakdown and disease began. Pain and death became part of the human experience.” The Bible says it’s because of sin that nature was corrupted and “thorns and thistles” entered the world. Romans 8:22 says, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” In other words, nature longs for redemption to come and for things to be set right. That’s the source of disorder and chaos.”

One day God will set everything right, but in the meantime, we will continue to face things resulting from the fallen state of the world we live in, including accidents. Accidents which aren’t always someone’s fault. Sure there are times when accidents happen because we’re distracted, careless, or foolish, but there are other times when accidents just happen. And whether or not an accident could have been prevented, it didn’t necessarily happen for a reason.

We can’t reason away everything. There are things that defy explanation, that don’t make sense, that we can’t understand. But there is a God who understands all, who understands us, and who understands our pain. A God who didn’t cause it all but will bring good from it all, if we give it all to Him. A God who will be our all in all, when we depend on Him.

God is everything we need. And when we can’t reason why everything happens in life, it’s all the reason we need Him even more.

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“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NLT)