For better, for worse

Many Christians take the position that God is responsible for all the good things that happen to us, but not for any of the bad things that happen to us. Indeed, their primary objection to Calvinism is that Calvinism makes God responsible for the bad things as well as the good. From their viewpoint, that’s self-evidently wrong. They can’t think of a worse thing you could say about God. They can’t imagine how some Christians actually believe that.

Because this is so obvious to them, they don’t give it a second thought. Or if they do give it a second thought, they spend their time elaborating how unspeakably abhorrent that would be. They never stop to question their assumption.

Speaking for myself, I have just the opposite instinct. Of course, I believe that God is responsible for everything that happens. But suppose, for the sake of argument, that I had a choice: either God is only responsible for the good things that happen to me or else he’s only responsible for the bad things that happen to me.

If push came to shove, I’d opt for the “evil” alternative. Given a choice, I’d rather that God be responsible for the bad things rather that the good things.

Where the good things are concerned, I have nothing to fear. Nothing to lose. I'm safe. They pose no threat to me or my loved ones. The good is risk-free. 

But evil can do me harm. Evil can harm my loved ones. Where evil is concerned, I’d have everything to fear, everything to lose–unless God is behind the evil. Unless God limits the evil. Unless the evil serves an ulterior good.

If God is responsible for the evil that befalls me or my loved ones, then no matter how bad it gets, it will never get as bad as it could. It will never involve irreparable harm or irremediable loss. If God is responsible for the evils in my life, then there’s a floor beyond which it won’t go. If everything, including every evil event, unfolds according to God’s wise, beneficent plan and providence, then evil is not a bottomless pit. Not for his children.

Every evil that befalls me as a Christian, however horrible, will be a redeemable evil. There is hope. There is good awaiting me on the other side of the ordeal–in this life or the next.

Many of us come to a point in life, sooner or later, where life closes in on us. Where, despite our best efforts to avoid it, our worst fears come true. Sometimes we can see it coming, and we feel helpless to stop it. We hope and pray that it will turn aside at the last moment, but it doesn’t.

Instead of waking up from a nightmare, you wake up to a nightmare. That awful sinking sensation. To know you’re cornered. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. All the dice line up against you.

It’s in times like these, as we cling to a windswept rock, that knowing God is behind our ordeal is a source of hope and strength and consolation. Indeed, the only source of hope and strength and consolation. In knowing this, we know that this is not the end. This is not the epitaph. If God is behind it, then God is also in front of it. To bless us. To do us good.

For better and for worse. But not for the worst–but for the best.