Jason Isbell, God, and Our Plans

Every once in a while, I hear a song that just sticks with me. I can’t shake it. I listen to it over and over again trying to get it out of my system, but just when I think I’m over it, the song pops right back into my head, and all I can do is put on my headphones and press play. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, I can listen to a song dozens or even hundreds of times before it passes.

“24 Frames” by Jason Isbell was one of those songs for me.

This song stuck with me for a while when I first heard it. It’s not the style of music I typically listen to, but when I first heard my music pastor in Waco playing it a couple of years ago, I instantly knew it was a song I was going to have to spend some time with.

I thought the metaphor of 24 frames was clever. (For those who may not know, a frame is just a still image, and 24 of them are combined to make one second of film. So, one second in movie time is 24 frames, or pictures.) And I thought Jason Isbell’s reflections on his relationships during the verses were certainly relatable. But that wasn’t what really hooked me. What got me was the line in the chorus that refers to God as a pipe bomb.

What?

When I first heard that line, I had two reactions almost simultaneously: shock and agreement. I thought, “I’ve never heard God spoken about that way before, but yeah, I guess it’s kind of true.” But I wasn’t content to stop there. I needed to dive deeper. I wanted to understand what it was about that line that both surprised and informed me in ways that I wasn’t yet able to put into words.

So I spent a lot of time with this song. I listened to it over and over and over. I learned every line. Sang it out. Sometimes I would turn the music off and just sing it to myself. I kept repeating this song for weeks, and even when I finally stopped listening to it so intensely, I still thought about it often.

When we started doing a study on portrayals of God in culture for my Bible study, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take all of my ruminations about this song and finally put them into something comprehensible. I wrote a rough outline and used it as the basis for a great discussion with my class, and after all this time, I think I’m ready to share what this song has helped me realize—or at least understand more clearly—about God.

God is unpredictable.

“You thought God was an architect; now you know he’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow.”

You know what would be nice? It would be nice if God wrote us a book that detailed his plan for our lives from beginning to end and all we had to do was follow the steps sequentially. That would be so very convenient, wouldn’t it? So simple. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

But it is a common misconception. I thinks it’s natural for us to believe that God’s plan for our lives is clear, straightforward, and, well, easy. To us, God is like a master architect who’s slowly and meticulously constructing our lives using a blueprint that we have access to if we can just crack the code. Sometimes, we go so far as to believe that we know every facet of God’s will for our lives. And when we do that, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment, or worse.

God does speak to us through a book, but that book doesn’t tell us that God’s will is easy. It gives us some hints about seeking God’s will, but mostly, it tells about God himself. And at one point pretty early on, God reveals his nature in the truest way that human words can express. He tells us, “I am what I am” (Exodus 3.14).

You see, we don’t get to tell God who he is. Only God can define that. And anytime we allow ourselves to develop a static, limited image of God in our minds, he swoops in and complicates it. Because he’s always so much more than what we understand about him. That’s what we call his transcendence: He is more than we imagine him to be.

And one result of transcendence is that, to us at least, God is unpredictable. We never know exactly what he’s going to do next. We may feel like he’s preparing us for one thing only to find out that he has something completely different in mind for us. And in order to do that, he has to get rid of anything that’s in the way. Which means sometimes, he has to blow some stuff up. And now the pipe bomb analogy is starting to make sense.

Let me be clear: I am not saying that God is out to get you and to destroy everything you love. There are actually some people out there who see God as the antagonist of their story, the one who is trying to tear them down. And that simply is not true. God is loving, and everything he does, he does for our own good. It may feel like the end of the world when God tears down something we’ve spent so much time and energy building up, but through it all, we must remember who God is. He may be hard to predict, but he is always good.

As hard as it may be to accept, we serve a God who does new things. He is creative and innovative, and he’s been creating and innovating from day one. The universe itself is a result of his creativity, but he doesn’t stop there. God is always doing something new in the lives of his people, and it may be scary, but when it feels like God’s unpredictability is destroying all that we’ve built, we have to believe that he’s doing something new, and we have to have faith in who he is.

God isn’t constrained by our plans.

“Everything you built that’s all for show goes up in flames in 24 frames.”

I’ve always been a planner. For as long as I can remember, I’ve constantly wanted to know what’s next. This has certain benefits. It helps me prepare for the future, and it eases the anxiety that comes with uncertainty. It also sets me up for success. These positive side effects of planning are real, but there’s a dark side to my obsession with making plans, too.

When I’m at my worst, I become dogmatic about my plans. I get so focused on my idea how things should go that any slight deviation from the agenda becomes a catastrophe. I get nervous and frustrated. I shut down. I sometimes feel like I want to call the whole thing off because if it doesn’t go my way, then it’s never going to be right. This approach to planning is unhealthy, destructive, and ultimately self-defeating.

Because the truth is that plans change. And my plans are rarely—if ever—flawless. And so, when I’m planning an event with other people or thinking through my long-term goals or even just deciding what I want to do on my day off, I have to practice a certain amount of flexibility and even humility. When it comes to God and following his plans for my life, these practices are all the more critical.

Proverbs 19.21 tells us, “The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established.” Basically, what this means is that we can do all the planning in the world, but in the end, God’s plan is the one that will be carried out. Our agendas may seem solid, even perfect. But if they aren’t in line with what God wants, they will crumble in his wake.

This is a hard truth to accept, especially when what we want doesn’t align with what God wants. Of course, we think that we know what’s best for us. We believe that no one could possibly come up with a better plan for our lives than we could. After all, who knows us better than ourselves? Who understands our hopes, our dreams, and our needs more than we do?

The answer to those questions is that God does. Because we are fallen people living in a fallen world, our very minds—our cognitive abilities themselves—have been corrupted. And that includes our knowledge of ourselves. A plan that may seem perfectly logical to us could be a path to destruction from God’s point of view. But he sees the long-term that we can’t even fathom, and he knows what each of us ultimately needs.

When we prioritize our own plans above the will of God, we’re basically saying, “God, I’ve got this. I know what’s best for me. My plan for my life is better than your plan for my life.” We strive for control, and in the process, we dishonor God and elevate our own reasoning above his. This should not be so.

Sure, we can ignore God’s will and do our own thing. We can try as hard as we like to make our plans work. But we’re just extending that 24 frames into 48, 96, or more moments of heartache and failure until we finally decide to follow the only right path for our lives: the one he has for us.

God is the only one who truly knows what is best for us. Yes, it’s good for us to make plans, to set goals, to try to achieve the things that we feel led to pursue. But all of that planning must be done within the context of God’s will and with the acknowledgement that if he decides that he has something better for us, we’d best go along with it.

There is a Yiddish proverb that goes something like this: “Man plans, and God laughs.” I don’t think this image is portraying God as cruel. Rather, like a loving father, God looks down on us scrambling and stressing, trying to come up with some coherent plan for our lives and stick to it, and he chuckles to himself, saying, “If only they realized that I’ve got this covered.” And when we stop focusing on our own agendas long enough to really think about it, we realize that he does.

God has plans for us that are far more wonderful, fulfilling, and impactful than we could ever imagine. He knows each of us intimately, and he knows exactly what is best for us. God is not limited by our imperfect plans, and we should be thankful for it. Like the song says, we build and we build, and sometimes we even do it for the wrong reasons. In those times, God has a different plan for us, and that can be scary. But once we humble ourselves and recognize that he has the best possible plans in mind for us, we can let go of the burden of directing our lives and allow God to do his thing.

God has the best in mind for us.

“You thought God was an architect; now you know he’s sitting in a black car ready to go.”

Because the truth is that he’s not going to leave us in a place of destruction. Sure, he might have to blow up some bad ideas and tear down some flawed plans in order to get us where we need to be, but he never stops there. He always has something ahead of us, something for us to look forward to, some new plan for us to pursue.

I spent a lot of time struggling with the last chorus of this song. In it, the singer no longer compares God to a pipe bomb, but to a car driver. Who could this be? A chauffeur? The singer’s manager? I’m still not completely certain the exact image the singer is trying to convey, but I’m also not sure that it matters. Because I’ve come to understand the truth behind it.

Yes, sometimes God is disruptive and unsettling like a pipe bomb, but then, he’s encouraging and soothing. He waits for us to catch up to him on his path for our lives, and he stands ready to bring us along for the ride. He’s patient. He’s kind. He’s ready to give us just the little push that we need to take the next step on the wonderful journey he has in store for us.

After the explosion has rocked our lives and the smoke has cleared, God remains. He doesn’t abandon us. Rather, he stays with us and helps us move on. It’s hard when something we thought was going to be good suddenly falls apart, and God understands that. He sympathizes with us and comforts us in those moments. And when we’re ready, he helps us move past those moments so that we can begin to build something new.

When he was on earth, Jesus told his followers, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6.33). “These things” could mean any number of different things depending who you are and what you need. I think that Jesus used an all-encompassing term to let us know that it doesn’t matter what we feel like we’re missing out on or what needs we have that won’t be met. As long as we’re following after him in humble, obedient faith, he will take care of the rest. And he will give us a life that’s better than anything we could have come up with on our own.

The image of God as a pipe bomb is unsettling. It’s not one we like to think about, but we cannot deny that it’s true. And if we want to truly understand and relate to God, then we have to recognize him in all of his facets. One of the ways that God works in our lives is through tearing down our misguided plans in order to make room for his perfect will. This can feel like the hardest thing we’ve ever endured, but when we feel our lives being shaken by God’s corrective power, we can rest in the fact that he is still with us in the wreckage, and he’s always ready to show us what’s next.

Breaking My Nastiest Habit

Warning: This post might gross you out a little bit. (It certainly did me.) I’m sorry if it does, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

So I have a problem. And it’s a little uncomfortable to share, but I’m going to do it anyway. Because this is the internet, and that’s what we do here, right? We overshare. Here’s my issue: Every once in a while, as I’m going about just living my life, I look down at my hands and come to a sudden realization that completely derails my day and sends me into a self-conscious tailspin. It’s embarrassing. It’s obvious to everyone around me. And it’s a source of endless insecurity.

Sometimes, I forget to trim my fingernails.

Gross. Blech. Hurl. I know. I told you it was embarrassing. But I want to be clear: This problem is not due to a lack of personal hygiene. I take care of myself. But keeping my fingernails at bay has never been a concern for me because I’ve always done it subconsciously through what I call the “natural method.” That is, I used to chew them.

I did it all the time. Everywhere. In public, in private, in the car, in bed, at work, at church. It didn’t matter. I was constantly sticking my fingers in my mouth and biting off pieces of my fingernails. Now that is disgusting. And I hated it. I knew how socially unacceptable it was. I knew how gross it was. I knew how strange it made me look to other people. But I just couldn’t stop. For as long as I can remember, I’ve chewed my nails. It’s just always been a thing that I do.

But one day last year, as I was sitting in class and chewing my nails in front of God and everyone, I stopped and said to myself, “I will never do this again.” And that was it. I quit cold turkey, and I haven’t looked back. I can honestly say that since that day, I’ve never chewed my nails again.

Which leads back to my long nail issue. I literally had to go out and buy fingernail clippers because I’ve never owned a pair before. And I’ve had to learn to get into the habit of taking care of my nails, something I’m still working on to this day. But recently, after a long-overdue round of nail-clipping, I started to reflect on how I got to this place.

How is that I changed my lifelong nail-biting habit so suddenly and seemingly so permanently? What was it about that decision and the circumstances surrounding it that made it such a success? I can’t say that I have it completely worked out, but I have come to a few conclusions that I‘d like to share.

For me, breaking this habit wasn’t a struggle. I didn’t waver on it. I didn’t feel an overwhelming compulsion to go back to my old ways. I didn’t have to wean myself off of it slowly until I finally broke free from it forever. It wasn’t an uphill climb, but more like a light switch. Suddenly, the switch was turned off for good.

But on the flip side, it was a long time coming. Though I had never tried to quit before, I had often berated myself for the habit. I knew how bad it was, and I knew that I should quit. I had just never taken that step of turning it into a reality. Mentally, I was aware of the need for a change, and before I even realized it, the right time had come. I don’t think I would have been successful had I tried any time before.

One of the biggest factors for my success was the feeling of general security that I had at the time. I was in a place where I was comfortable and happy. I had a regular schedule, healthy habits, and a great social life. It turns out that having your life in order actually creates space for self-improvement rather than inspiring complacency. Had I been in a less secure and healthy place, I probably would have slipped back into the habit the second the opportunity arose.

Sure, I’m still tempted sometimes. I’m not sure that it’ll ever go away completely. Especially in times of stress, I feel my fingers inching towards my mouth, almost like muscle memory. And I’ve come pretty close to relapsing once or twice. But I don’t live in a constant state of withdrawal symptoms because I’ve successfully broken the habit in the right way, and I know that it’s broken for good.

And on top of breaking my bad habit, I’m learning new habits. Like clipping my fingernails. And taking care of myself in more substantial ways. That may be the most beautiful thing about breaking bad habits: It leaves you free to create new, positive habits that give you life. And isn’t that the point of it all, anyway?

I’m not writing this to pat myself on the back or to say that my way of breaking a bad habit is the only way. Certainly, there are circumstances where a habit can’t be broken cold turkey, and not everyone is fortunate enough to attain the kind of security that I had when I made that change. But I hope that my reflections on this experience are helpful and maybe even inspiring to those who find themselves trying to improve through breaking bad habits and forming good ones. The truth is that no matter how hard it may seem, it’s possible, and it’s more than worth it in the end.

So take a chance. Break the habit. Form a better one. Maybe, like me, you’ll find success and make your life a little bit better through it.

Ding

I’m standing in the doorway of my office, leaned against the doorpost, having a casual but enthused conversation with a coworker about the upcoming Star Wars movie. As we’re swapping theories about the latest trailer, I feel a vibration on my wrist. Then another one. And another one. It’s my smartwatch letting me know that someone is texting me. The haptic indicator is unnoticeable to my friend, but for me, it’s nearly impossible not to recognize it. And then I have to ask myself: Do I disengage from this enjoyable conversation to check my text messages, or do I ignore the constant buzzing on my wrist?

Later, I’m at my computer editing graphics for a marketing campaign, and I see a rounded rectangle slide in to the top right of my screen. Instinctively, I avert my attention to the notification, which informs me that I am once again the lucky recipient of a piece of junk email. I navigate away from the task at hand to my inbox, delete the message, inaudibly curse the sender of the unwanted message, and then try to return to the work, slightly less focused and markedly more agitated.

That night, I’m sleeping soundly in bed. The lights are off, and the only sound in my house is the soothing white noise coming from the table fan that I’ve never actually used to cool myself. Suddenly, I’m jolted awake by my phone’s bright screen accompanied by a chirping noise. Groggy and startled, I reach over and grab my phone to see what the commotion is about. The vital information that I just had to know in the middle of the night? Some stranger liked a dumb joke I had made on Twitter at lunch.

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As time goes on, it seems that I’m getting more and more notifications on more and more devices. Texts on my phone. Emails on my computer. Facebook pokes (yes, they’re still a thing) on my iPad. Exercise reminders on my watch. New releases on my gaming console. Software updates on my TV. The low battery indicator on my Bluetooth speaker. Everywhere I turn, something is dinging, pinging, buzzing, or full-on screeching in an attempt to get my attention and deliver some information that I just have to know right that second lest the world seemingly fall apart.

And of course, I buy right into it. The constant slew of notifications has trained me to react with near-Pavlovian compulsion to each and every one. I can’t help but look when a notification comes my way. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even notice myself lifting my wrist and looking down at my smartwatch each time it vibrates. It’s become muscle memory. The gap between stimulus and response is practically nonexistent and—worse—completely subconscious.

This relationship with digital notifications begins at a positive place: We want to know what’s going on in the world, and notifications are supposed to help us keep up. When a friend texts us asking if we’d like to go out, we want to know so that we can respond with, “Heck yes I do!” When a family member calls to deliver important news, we don’t want them to get sent to voicemail. And when a supervisor sends an email requesting an update on the latest project, we know that responding quickly is key for future success. These notifications are helpful, even necessary. And so we buy into the system.

But then they just keep piling up. Suddenly, streaming apps wants to notify us every time a new show is added to their service. Our favorite restaurants ask to send us reminders about new menu items and limited-time offers. Social media networks demand that we pay attention every time someone starts typing a message to us, and again when they send it. (I’m looking at you, Snapchat.) Eventually, the amount of notifications we receive in a given day becomes so great that it’s unmanageable, and it begins to have a negative impact on our lives.

These notifications are distracting. We struggle to hold a conversation, enjoy a meal, or read a book without taking intermittent breaks to check our phones. We can’t even sit through a movie or TV show (which are meant to serve as distractions from real life) without getting distracted by our digital lives. These notifications divert our focus from what’s in front of us to something in the ether. And so we go about our lives only halfway-present to the people and tasks that we should be fully devoting our attention to.

They also form nasty, compulsive habits. Every time we get an Instagram like or a response from a friend, we get a tiny endorphin high. Our brains come to associate those tones and buzzes with attention, support, and excitement. And every time we check our phones, we reinforce this subconscious link. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle that leaves us staring at our screens waiting for the next notification to come in. (Don’t act like you haven’t done it.)

Not to mention that they are dangerous. They keep us from sleep, keep us from focusing while we drive, keep us dependent on our devices for comfort and interaction rather than finding those things on our own. It might sound like a trivial problem, but the stakes aren’t low here. There are real consequences to these issues that need to be addressed.

And on top of it all, most of these notifications are absolutely worthless. They’re garbage. We literally refer to them as “junk.” Be honest: What percentage of the emails that come to your inbox on a daily basis actually add value to your life? How often do you find yourself swiping away notifications because they’re in your way and don’t offer any relevant information? Do you ever find yourself frustrated or disappointed when your phone goes off and it isn’t what you were expecting? The truth is that we don’t need the majority of the notifications that come across our devices every day. They don’t offer any value to us.

Which has led me to the conclusion that if I never received another notification for the rest of my life, I’d be better off for it. It would be better for me to miss out on some texts, calls, and emails than to keep being bombarded by the never-ending slew of crap that’s coming to my devices each and every day. I would be less anxious, more present, and much happier if the notifications simply stopped altogether. What a sad realization.

I am the last person in the world to speak ill of technology. I love technology. It’s my career. It’s my hobby. It makes up a great deal of my life, and I get so much enjoyment out of it. But technology can be misused, and I believe it’s currently being abused to the point that it’s having a marked impact on our overall quality of life. As someone with a deep affection for technology, I can’t help but seek a better way. And I believe that a better way exists if everyone will do their part.

Part of it lies on the sources themselves. People and services need to start offering higher-value content if they want our time and attention. If something is going to interrupt my life and demand my focus, it better be pretty dang important. The ability to enter someone’s life at such an intimate level is no small thing, and it needs to be taken seriously by those who are sending out those notifications.

We also need to be given more control over our notifications by the makers of the technologies we use. Sure, there are some decent options right now, but they often require digging deep into a device’s settings and going through meticulous lists that most people just aren’t going to bother with. I should be able to define who I want to hear from and when. I should be able to tell my phone to only show me work emails during business hours and that while I’m asleep, only a handful of chosen people should be able to wake me up. If I really want to monitor one particular post I’ve shared on social media, I should be able to turn on notifications for that particular piece of content without getting notified every time someone comments on some silly video that I liked last week. Giving users control over their notifications would at least give us the option of unplugging a bit when we want to.

But ultimately, the responsibility lies with us to take control of our digital lives. Because we’re the ones who have to deal with the consequences. If you can’t kick the impulse to check for new likes every five minutes, delete the app for a while. If your family members complain that you aren’t paying attention to them, turn the dang phone off and enjoy a meal with them. If you can’t sleep at night because of the dinging and buzzing coming from your nightstand, there’s a “silent” option on your devices for just such occasions. It’s on each of us to make use of the tools we have (limited though they may be) to keep the notifications at bay so that they don’t prevent us from living our lives.

We’re in desperate need of a shift in thinking when it comes to notifications on our devices. We can’t go on like they are all valuable and we need them in our lives. We can’t go on like compulsively checking them isn’t hurting our relationships with those we love. We can’t go on like relying on these notifications for entertainment, comfort, and fulfillment is a sustainable lifestyle. We can’t keep ignoring the problem and passively checking every notification that comes our way.

Our devices offer us the ability to connect with others and stay informed about the world in ways that we never thought possible, and our lives are better for it. But they also offer never-ending sources of buzzes, dings, and other intrusions that aren’t worth our time and attention. Learning to distinguish between the two and remove the latter from our lives isn’t just important: It’s essential if we’re going to thrive in the digital age.

The Question We Can’t Escape

Alright, I’ve avoided the question for long enough. And whether I knew it or not, my articles the past couple of weeks have really been building up to this. We’ve talked about what we ask after a tragedy, and we’ve talked about what we don’t ask after a tragedy. Now it’s time to address the question that keeps coming back time after time, whether we’re ready for it or not. Let’s talk about theodicy.

In a nutshell, theodicy means the question of evil: How is it that evil exists in a world ruled by a loving, all-powerful God? Why do bad things happen?

As I said last week, this question is worth exploring, but only under the right circumstances. The types of conversations that this question produces are intellectual, theological, and philosophical in nature. The point isn’t to make someone feel better, but rather to explain a very difficult truth. Which is why I left this question out of the discussion up to this point: It’s not the type of question one should be discussing while still reeling from a tragedy.

When we talk about theodicy, we’re entering the world of apologetics, which focuses on defending the logic of the Christian faith. I know a lot of people are enamored by this topic. I personally don’t focus on it much, and I’m by no means an expert, but this question in particular came up in nearly every class I took in seminary. It’s one that is inescapable in the life of faith, and so it’s one that we each must have an answer for.

What follows is my approach to the question. It’s one (informed) take, but it’s not necessarily the universal answer for everyone. I hope that you find it compelling and helpful, but if not, please know that there are other perspectives out there that I would invite you to explore.

Why do we exist?

When we ask the theodicy question, we tend to take an anthropocentric view, focusing on the bad things that happen to human beings. Of course, this isn’t the only way of thinking about the question of evil, but it’s the most common one, so it’s the one that I’ll address here. If we want to understand why bad things happen to people—and specifically to us as individuals—we have to first take a step back and understand the purpose of human existence in the first place.

Why did God create us? After all, God was perfectly complete on his own. He didn’t even need us in order to have relationship. The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit exist in perfect union as the Trinity. And he didn’t need us to rule over because he was already the lord of the universe. No, God didn’t need us for anything. Rather, he created us because he wanted us.

We serve a God who wants to know others and to be known by them. We serve a God who wants to share life with others. And ultimately, we serve a God who wants to love others and to be loved by others. And guess who those “others” are? Us.

That’s our purpose for existing: to know God, to live life with God, and above all, to love God. Of course, we use other words to describe these sorts of things. We say we’re meant to enjoy God, honor God, glorify God, worship God, obey God, and on and on. All of these things are true, but I think they can all be summed up in these three actions: knowing God, living life with him, and loving him. That’s what God made us to do.

What does it take?

But in order for that to happen, some things have to happen first. Love has some prerequisites in order for it to be real. And the most important of those prerequisites is free will. Love cannot be compelled. God does not want a planet full of robots saying, “I love you, God,” on cue. No, he wants people to choose to love him of their own will. Anything less would be meaningless.

But of course, having the free will to love God necessarily requires the option to not love God. To turn away from him. Even to despise him. And so, when God gave human beings the capacity for love, he inevitably gave us the capacity for rebellion. And that’s where sin and evil come into play. When we turn away from God and his plan for our lives, we commit sin, and sin has consequences.

And what are the consequences of sin? Well, we call them “evil.” We call them that because we don’t like them, and they cause us immense suffering. Things like death, heartbreak, and pain are all natural consequences of sin. But these consequences aren’t limited to just the personal, individual level. Larger-scale evil like disease, natural disasters, systemic injustice, and acts of terror are also just as much results of sin as instances of evil that are more easily traced to individual human actions.

Because for almost as long as we’ve been in existence, humans have been committing sin and rebelling against God. We’ve used the free will that God gave us for our own selfish purposes, and the evil that we see around us is simply the natural result of that. God did not create evil; we did, through our evil actions. And when we point the finger at God for terrible things that happen, we’re simply trying to distract ourselves from the fact that all of the bad things that take place ultimately point back to us.

Evil is nothing more than the consequence of the sins committed by human beings on a personal, societal, and global level throughout history. Our world, nature, society, and the universe itself are ravaged by the results of our centuries-long rebellion against God, and so when bad things happen, we really have no one to blame but ourselves.

I want to be clear here: I am not saying that any individual instance of evil can be tied to any individual sin, whether it be personal or collective. There is a tendency to look for a group to blame whenever a natural disaster hits or a mass shooting takes place. This impulse is natural but misguided. The relationship between sin and evil is deep; it’s complex, and it goes back farther than even our history books. It’s not that any particular decision causes any particular evil result, but that our continual acts of rebellion against God continue to keep the world in a state where these sorts of evil things can and do happen.

What now?

So God gave us free will in order that we may love him, and we instead used that free will to turn our backs on him, with the ultimate consequence of that rebellion being the evil that we see in the world today. What are we supposed to do about it?

I think the most obvious thing is to turn back to God and live out his purpose for our lives. If we’re meant to know God, to do life with him, and to love him, then doing those things will by definition lead to a good life. We’ll still live in a fallen world, and we’ll still feel the effects of evil, but we won’t have to live under the oppression of our own sin. God became a human being in Jesus, and he overcame sin and death, giving us an opportunity to forsake sin and return to him. This is the most important way that we can combat evil in our world.

We must also pray. God set up the world in such a way that our prayers have an effect on the world around us. Prayer changes things. It can lead to healing, both of people and of societies. It can lead to reconciliation. It can lead to safety. It can combat evil in so many ways that we don’t even understand, and that’s OK. We don’t necessarily have to understand it all. We just have to be faithful to pray and ask God to intervene for us against evil.

We also have an opportunity to combat evil by resisting it when we see it in the world and when we’re tempted to participate in it ourselves. Hatred, bigotry, selfishness, violence, and so many other forms of evil are all around us (and sometimes, tragically, inside of us). We cannot simply stand by and allow it to take place. When we see it in the world, we are called to speak out against it, to resist it with the influence that we’ve been given. And when we see it in ourselves, we are called to repent of it and to do better.

And finally, we have no other choice but to trust in God’s ultimate plan for the world. Evil has free reign for now, but we know that in the end, God will one day overcome evil once and for all. He will remove it from the world and cast it into utter destruction. His plan for the world—the way that he always intended for it to be—will one day become a reality, and when we trust in that truth and live with it as a reality in our lives, we are fighting evil in our own way.

The world is broken; no one can deny that. We broke it, and we see the consequences all the time. But ultimately, God is on our side. He wants to know us and to be known by us. He wants to walk through life with us. And he wants to share in a loving relationship with us. When we choose to say yes to God, we see just how good he is. And he is good. He’s the only source of good we can turn to in a world overrun by evil. In the end, good will prevail over the evil that currently oppresses us, and if we choose to be on the side of good, then we will prevail over it, too.

The Question We Aren’t Really Asking After a Tragedy

Last week, I published an article entitled, “Questions We Ask After a Tragedy.” In it, I listed five common questions that come up when something terrible happens and offered what I hope are helpful responses to each question. Though the post was well-received, the most common feedback was that I’d left an important question off the list: How could God allow this?

I chose not to include this question for a reason. I do think it’s an important question, and one we should at least try to answer. And it is true that we tend to voice this question a lot after something terrible happens. After all, it only seems natural to wonder why a loving, powerful God wouldn’t intervene when a person sets out to kill others. But I think that often when we ask this question, we aren’t really asking it to get any sort of answer.

Here’s what I mean: When a person is still reeling from a horrific event, they aren’t exactly ready to talk about theology. A person who is in shock may ask a philosophical question, but that doesn’t mean that they are looking for a philosophical answer. And someone who’s mourning a major loss doesn’t need an explanation for their suffering; they need comfort.

The truth is that there is no answer to the question, “How could God allow this?” that would make a victim or someone close to a victim feel any better in the wake of a traumatic event. There is a time for such discussions, but the moments directly following these horrific acts are not the right time. Why, then, do we ask this question during these moments if an answer to the question isn’t what we’re looking for?

I think that there are a few reasons. First of all, we ask the question because we have to. Tragedies tend to double as crises of faith, even for the most pious of believers. When something bad happens, it forces us to question what we believe, and so we have no choice but to ask why something so awful could happen in a world ruled by the God we claim to believe in.

We also ask the question because the very act of voicing the question has value. It gives an outlet to pain and tension that, left unrecognized, could lead to anger, resentment, or even a loss of faith altogether. It brings God into the equation, even if his exact place in that equation is in question for the time being. And it creates solidarity between us and the people around us, as well as every person throughout history who has suffered pain, because we have all found ourselves asking this question at one point or another.

And ultimately, we ask this question because we don’t know what else to do. We’re scared and confused, and the only way we know how to express those emotions is to ask God how he could let something like this happen. I think that within the context of a tragedy, we’re not really so much concerned with the intellectual responses that this question tends to warrant. Rather, we have more practical, fundamental questions that we just aren’t able to voice.

Again, I’m not saying that the question of why God lets these things happen isn’t worthwhile. But I don’t think that’s our main concern when we’ve just been struck by something horrendous. Rather, I think that when we ask this question, what we’re really asking is something more like this:

Does God care?

When something awful happens in our lives, it often seems like God is unconcerned. After all, if he was interested in what was happening, why wouldn’t he intervene? In these moments, we need to know at the most basic level that God cares about us and what we’re going through.

And fortunately, we have plenty of reasons to believe that God does care about us. Not only does scripture consistently tell us of God’s love and concern for his children, but it also tells us the story of just how much God cares about human beings and what happens to us. God cared so much that he became a human himself and entered history with us. That’s pretty incredible. And if it doesn’t demonstrate God’s concern for the world and for what happens in it, I don’t know what does.

It might not be too difficult to believe that God cares about the world as a whole. He did creat it, after all. But God isn’t just concerned with the big picture. He also cares about each person individually. The truth is that God knows each of us intimately. Like a loving parent, he cares for each of us uniquely and is concerned about us and the things we are concerned about. Sure, God cares about the world, but he cares about each person in the world, too.

When these terrible things happen, it’s natural to wonder whether or not God cares about it. But the unequivocal truth is that he does. God cares for the world, and he cares for each of us individually, and we need to be reminded of that (and remind others of that) in the midst of tragedy.

Could God have stopped this?

These events also make us wonder about God’s power. Is it possible that God didn’t stop this from happening because he simply couldn’t? It would certainly help answer the question of why he allows these things. But it would also mean that he hasn’t overcome evil. and if that’s the case, then why would we trust him?

Scripture is clear that God created the world and rules over it. It’s true that some things—and I would argue many things, if not most things—that take place in this world are not what God wants, but that’s not because he does not have the power to stop them. God has the ability to do whatever he wants. But he allows things to happen outside of his will for reasons that we do not always understand. But we don’t have to completely understand that to believer that God is in control.

I want to be clear here: God does not want these tragedies to happen. They are not a part of his will or his plan for the world. When people are violent and hateful towards one another, they are going completely against what God wants for them and for humanity as a whole. God’s will is not always carried out, but that’s not because God does not have the power to carry out his will. We know that he does, and that ultimately, his plan for the world will come to fruition in the long run.

After something horrendous takes place, we need to know that God is in control. Trusting in him and the fact that he is still on his throne, even when the world around us seems completely out of control, is what helps us maintain our faith and a sense of stability (however limited it may be) through the darkest of times.

Where is God when bad things happen?

So we want to know about God’s concern for us, and we want to know about his power over the world. But neither of those things does us much good unless we are sure of his presence with us. Because in the wake of a disaster, it doesn’t feel like God is there. It feels like he’s somewhere far away focused on something else. It makes us ask, “Where is God?”

Of course, we aren’t the first to wonder where God is. One of the recurring themes throughout the Psalms is the question of where God was when his people were taken into exile by foreign armies. After all, the temple was the representation of God’s presence with his people, and they had been removed far from it. (Not to mention that it had been burned to the ground.) But as we know and as the psalmists came to find out, God’s presence isn’t limited to any geographical location.

The answer to the question, “Where is God in the midst of tragedy?” is simple. He’s right there. He’s there mourning with the victims and their loved ones as they cry out in pain and desperation. He’s there working through the servicepeople and volunteers as they rescue, heal, and protect. He’s there comforting, drawing people to himself, and yes, intervening in ways that we cannot perceive or understand. When tragedy strikes, God is there.

When terrible things happen, we don’t need long, theological discussions about why God allows certain things to happen while stopping other things. Though that may be the question we ask out loud, it’s not the question that our souls are crying out for answers to. What we really need to know is that God cares, that he’s in control, and that he’s with us. These truths mean so much more in the midst of tragedy than any philosophical argument could, and they are the truths that we need to hear and to share when disaster strikes.

And strike it will. When it does, may we do our best to hear in others the questions they may not be able to articulate themselves and offer them the comforting answers that they so desperately need.