Everything Happens for a Reason....

No it doesn't. This phrase, 'everything happens for a reason,' is one that I cannot stand. I don't believe it to be true, and each time I hear someone say it, it grates me inside.


Last night, I sat in our ship lounge and watched the second video in a three part series they are doing on the civil war that occurred here in Liberia. I couldn't stop the tears from flowing as I watched atrocities that occurred on the very streets I have been walking on for the last couple of weeks. I wept seeing children injured and killed, placed in mass graves with dozens of others...all innocent victims of senseless acts of violence and war. The Liberian civil war was one fueled by greed and power, as corrupt leaders led their own people down a path that destroyed lives and the once-prosperous state of their country. I can't say this happened for a reason. I can't say that innocent people died for a reason. That children starved for a reason. That women and young girls were raped for a reason. That young boys were given guns and sent to kill their own people for a reason.


I can't stand this phrase, because there are some things that are NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. And saying that everything happens for a reason undermines that some things are evil, wrong, senseless, and devastating.


When Jesus talked to His disciples, He said to them, "In this world you will have trouble....". His next sentence was not: "But take heart! Everything happens for a reason." Rather, the next statement out of His mouth was: "...take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:32-33)
There are things that happen on this earth that occur for no other reason than the fact that we live in a fallen world, and we all sin and are capable of great evil.


While I cannot find solace in assuring myself that all that touches my life has touched it for a reason, I am not without hope. Though we live in a world plagued with sin, God has not simply abandoned us here to be victims of its consequences. His gifts to us are countless, but two come to mind at this moment. First, He offers us salvation. Not necessarily an immediate deliverance from the pain and suffering of this life, but rather the truth that He has won the ultimate victory over sin. I have hope knowing that because Jesus paid the price of his own life, we have access to an Eternity with Him...FREE from sin and suffering and death. It is a hope in something yet to come.

And second, He offers us His presence with us and this precious promise:
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose....Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:28, 35-39

So as my heart aches for these people and the evil that they have lived through, my prayer for them is that they would find a place for hope: that they would know Jesus as the Savior that He is, and that they would know Him to be present even in the midst of all that has happened in this place. Please pray for them with me.