How many times have you heard someone say, “Everything happens for a reason?”
What that sounds like is you think the other person was supposed to go through whatever tragic situation they’re facing. That for some cosmic reason they’re supposed to be experiencing unimaginable grief, heartache or pain. How do you think that makes them feel?
Everything does not happen for a reason.
Sometimes bad things happen for no other reason than we live in an imperfect world, and that pain, heartache, grief, and loss are an inevitable part of life.
A friend of mine once rattled on and on about all his troubles and woes and ended with, “Why me, why me?” He was incensed when I answered, “Why not you? What makes you think you’re owed a pain-free existence? Jesus Himself told us, “In this world you will have trouble.”
Its true God can use our pain for a greater good if, in time, we choose to let Him, but believing “everything happens for a reason,” or “you can find good in every situation,” is not true and can be downright cruel to say to someone who’s really hurting.
God’s plan was for us to live in peace and communion with Him—but that all got messed up in the Garden of Eden when Adam disobeyed God and sin entered the world. (Read Romans 5:12-21) God’s will for us now, at least as far as I can see, is for us to turn to Him in our times of suffering, comfort one another in our trials and tragedies and do all we can to create good.
Not everything happens for a reason—but in everything there is a reason to draw closer to God and bring hope and healing to others.
Give this thought some thought of your own, and be careful about what you say to another hurting soul.
