You don’t have to look far in religion to find all versions of the idea that everything is somehow working towards ‘best case scenario,’ that we just don’t have the foresight to understand how horrible things are strategically placed by God for some overall good, that when we get what we want it’s a ‘God thing’, and when we don’t ‘not getting it is better for us’, and when we suffer it’s some ‘part of greatness that’s greater than the suffering’.
These aren’t even biblical. Come on.
I think they only appeal to someone who needs ‘greatness’. I don’t.
I can not believe in ‘it’s for the best’. I can’t. I can’t believe there’s even the smallest of good in every situation. I don’t. I can’t. The grandma who stabbed her 20 month old granddaughter and put her in a hot oven to die…. The hundreds of thousands of trafficked children – powerless – suffering violence, rape, and abuses we can’t fathom…the list goes on, and moves closer and closer to home.
I can not believe it’s all for the best, I can not believe some good comes out of every situation. And even if it does… I can’t believe this is the only way.. Or that it’s worth all it cost.
I. Can. Not.
The ‘all things work together’ we love to talk about…. All that can possibly mean is eventually we are free. That’s all.
I can’t believe anything other than God has the power to force any change. He says he does. I can only conclude that our freedom, our free will, is very VERY important to him. That’s it.
Because the alternative is a God whose hand is arbitrarily moved. And that paints a very ugly picture…. One I’ll have NOTHING to do with.
OR ‘everything’s for the best’ which we’ve already established – I can’t.
With freedom comes a lot of heartache. Surely He’s just as broken as we are at the suffering and pain. Surely he weeps with us. The things that break us break him too….and the things that leave crusty, salty streaks on our cheeks leave tear stains down his, too. Surely that’s how this works.