“No, not everything happens for a reason.”

“No, not everything happens for a reason.” Reread that. Does it make you uncomfortable? It kinda does for me. Over the past couple of months I’ve been struggling with some things that I have been preaching for years. Now, let me give you a shortcut to that thought: those things I preached are no less true, but…my perspective has changed a little.

Isn’t that the Christian faith though? Admitting… “Oops, excuse me while I continue to grow.”  But let me back up for a moment, we’ll come back to that.

There you are, you have just found out that your house that you thought was under contract…now isn’t. (This is purely hypothetical of course).  You’ve already put an offer on another home that you absolutely love because of a move that you are taking due to a job change. AND that job change came about because the Lord set things in motion for you in a series of events that are out of the ordinary. (Okay, maybe NOT quite so hypothetical). If the Lord was in the stirring and He seemed to be in the details of helping you find and sell a home then certainly "we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28) Right?

In the past I have heard people wield this verse as they slash their way through hard things that have happened only to glance back and become very disheartened by what they saw. The question on their hearts…WHY DID GOD DO THIS TO ME? If ALL things work together for the good, what is the reason, the good, that God has intended by what He caused? There are two tough things straight way.

The first is, we don’t show up with party balloons to a conversation that needs a tissue and a listening ear.

One thing I have missed and that God has been doing in our hearts the past couple of months is the desire to hear the need of the person with whom I am talking. Sometimes a person needs to have their tears dried and their hearts lifted with scriptural truths.  Other times, they just need a safe person to listen to their grief and to say “I am so sorry, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.” So why do we immediately reach for the platitudes? Sometimes we are uncomfortable, maybe we have much to do, but the reality is that sometimes we don’t want to take the time to listen, so instead we tried to fix. ( I am still learning to do this after 27 years of marriage and often failing). Listen. Pause. Pray. Take a moment before you speak and ask yourself and God “what is the need here? Is it a fix? Or a listen? DO I need to swing the sword of scripture or does this person just need someone to grieve with their heart?” Trust me, I’m not nailing this one either.

Right before Romans 8:28 is a thought in verse 26: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Wowzers, that’s a lot of grief. That’s a lot of pain. I think of a friend who recently lost his father or a myriad of others who have recently experienced loss over the past year or so. They’ve gone through the kind of pain in which maybe they needed to hear that He  “…helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to pray for as we ought.” How comforting to know that as we go through the HARD that “the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.“ (Romans 8:27)

Family. It’s okay to grieve so much that we run out of words, and scriptural tropes, and even tears. We should be alongside of them praying, offering Peace, and at the right time, after we’ve listened and grieved with them, to offer Hope in the form of scriptural truths for sure.

But you said there are TWO things. Yep, the other is less feelings oriented and a little more theological. But just a little, so don’t stop reading.

When we read Romans 8:28 it almost seems to indicate that God does ALL these things, through His direct action, to bring about Good in my life. In fact, I heard a middle school student say in my small group recently

“God made my grandpa die so that he could……”

I was like “whoa, whoa, whoa…hang on there.”

I would ask instead that we think about Romans 8:28 in this way: “God gives reason to everything that happens.” God is able to put purpose behind the hard thing that happens so that as you’re going through it He can direct our hearts to…in the end be conformed to the image of His Son and ultimately to be Glorified.

Make no mistake, God CAN DO whatever He wants. But I don’t think God gave Uncle Owen cancer just to teach him a lesson. What I DO firmly believe is that through that diagnosis, through the loss of a loved one, or through a failed situation that God can use the broken pieces of our hearts to make something beautiful in His timing. He works through those terrible things to bring about the Hope, the Peace, and character in that He desires for us to be conformed to the image of His Son.

Compare those two statements again."Everything happens for a reason" verses"God gives reason to everything that happens." Can you see the difference in these statements? By believing this, there is an assertion of cause, suggesting God to be the cause of evil and sin. In reality, God is not the cause of evil, sin, or misfortune. To say that everything happens for a reason suddenly depicts God as a tyrant who doles out suffering for suffering's sake. To believe that everything happens for a reason makes malice out of God's grace and makes suffering a plague rather than a blessing.

However, when we are able to say that God gives reason to everything that happens testifies of God's deliverance and providence. Instead of setting up traps in our lives, God providentially purposes our lives.  Sarah Morrison from The Daily Grace Co says it this way: He gives reason to the absurdity of life. He makes the nonsensical have a tangible, eternal impact on our souls.He sees the evil, injustice, and suffering and says, "I am going to use that." He purposes the bad things in our lives for our own benefit. He takes what the world makes so wrong and he rights it, not just making things ok but making things good.

No, not everything that happens for a reason, but God gives reason to everything that happens. Some things are just going to be hard and there may be no “lesson” in it except that we prove our faith as being real. This is why James, the half-brother of Jesus reminds us in his epistle to “count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” Counting it all JOY comes later, after the grief, after the pain and through the suffering as we continue to trust God, not our feelings. James doesn’t write this while Jesus is on the cross, he writes it much later with the benefit of having trusted God through that hard time. Jesus willingly gave Himself up for us and God used that to bring about the redemption of mankind.

As I reminded one well meaning acquaintance recently “Yes, I know that God works ALL THINGS for the good…I’m just trying to wait for my head to inform my heart of this Truth.” There ARE those moments in which the weight of disappointment, or loss, or doubt feels so heavy that there is a gap in what we KNOW and what we feel. In THOSE moments…you may need a little longer to grieve. You may need a person who is patient enough to give you the space to share what you’re going through without getting out the tool belt to fix something and in time wise enough to remind you that God is able to take your hard and to give reason to it.

Our house is now under contract again and there seems to have been no direct purpose other than…they just gave in to a spirit of fear and backed out from the contract. We have once again put an offer on a house (the same house as before) in the Mid Ohio Valley.  We are making LESS money on our home now than before but God has still graciously provided for us to be able to do that. Thanks in part to our realtor who has graciously taken less commission AND to a couple of VERY GENEROUS individual who have given us good gifts, God gifts. And now it is up to us to trust Him for the rest of what we need. Knowing that He is good and able to use the yuck that we go through doesn’t make it less yucky, but it gives us Hope and Peace while we are in the midst of it.

Love you all, thanks for praying and grieving, and rejoicing alongside of us. -Pastor Mark