Does God’s Will Always Happen?
Several years ago, while my husband, Mark, and our son, Evan, waited to pick up our car at the dealership, the salesperson told them her story of pain and disappointment. She had been a teacher at a Christian preschool for many years. It was her passion, and she loved it. Then, her brother died unexpectedly, and it shook her world. Though grieving, she pushed on and continued to invest in her kids at school. Then one day, the superintendent of the school called her into her office and told her that several parents had complained that her countenance had changed, that she seemed depressed and unfit to teach their children. They fired her that day. No second chances, no sympathy for her grief, no help in healing.
That’s how she ended up at the dealership—needing work and willing to do whatever she had to do to support herself, even something so far from her passions. She shared with Mark how the experience had shaken her faith. Why had God brought such tragedy and loss into her life? she wondered.
“God didn’t do this to you,” Mark said. “It’s OK to blame the people responsible.”
“It is?” she said, leaning forward, looking at him intently. “I thought it was wrong to blame them. I guess I blamed God instead.”
“People made those hurtful choices—not God,” said Mark. “He is for you, he grieves with you, and he wants to heal your heart.”
When Mark and Evan left, the woman thanked them, her eyes shining with relief. She no longer had to blame God for her pain. He had not turned his back on her. He was still her savior and friend.
The details of this woman’s story are unique, but her response is common. We find it easy to blame God for the tragedies we face. It makes sense. He is, after all, the most powerful being in the universe. This is the mainstream Christian explanation of difficult circumstances: “It must have been God’s will.” And in this way, we attribute all kinds of inconsistencies and horrors to God.
Thankfully, the Bible gives us a much better picture of God’s sovereignty and authority.
From the very beginning, we see God giving people genuine choices and allowing them to make mistakes. Adam and Eve didn’t have to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; they chose to in disobedience to God’s command (see Gen. 3). The Bible clearly indicates that choice was against God’s will. God did not “allow” the fall, but he is powerful enough to redeem it. To say otherwise is to suggest that God would ordain or cause Adam and Eve to sin and then punish them and their offspring for that sin. Such a God would be neither loving nor just.
This pattern of interactions—in which God warns people against a particular choice and then they do it anyway—is repeated throughout biblical history. Unless we want to argue that God has persistently set people up to disobey his commands, we must acknowledge that people have the ability to choose something outside of God’s will. This is most evident in the fact that many people die apart from Christ. We know it is God’s will for all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of him (see 1 Tim. 2:3–4; 2 Pet. 3:9), yet many do not. Even in just this one aspect of life, on a daily basis, the will of God does not happen perfectly.
God’s sovereignty does not mean that he ordains everything that happens. Tragedy is not the will of God. In fact, the Bible says the opposite. Jesus said, “The thief [devil] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). God’s will is to bless and heal and deliver, to give us abundant life. It is the devil who brings pain and destruction into our lives.
The apostle James also made it clear that God does not tempt us to sin, but that instead people are led away by their own evil desires (see James 1:13–15). God is not the author of evil, but of good. James warns us about this deception, saying, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…” (James 1:16–17).
In these passages, Jesus and James give us a simple metric by which we can determine whether something comes from God. Is it good—does it produce abundance of life within us? If so, we can know it is a work of God. And if something has the opposite effect—destruction and evil—that does not come from God.
Let’s stop attributing the works of the devil to our holy and loving Father.
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