Everything Happens...But Not For a Reason

An idea that there is a great plan in works and we are pawns in the play of God is summed up in the well intentioned cliche: Everything happens for a reason. That is disturbing to me. Who is this God of reason who supposedly then has a reason for blue m&m's and a reason for crushing little kids to death? The big plan could certainly be improved upon by eliminating murder and mayhem.

I'm not buying it. Free will is acceptable to me. I can accept that God created a world where people are free to make choices and suffer the consequences. In the same world people are free to make choices which doom other people. That seems fair and humane to me. Throw in Guardian Angels and God answering prayers, picking who lives and who dies-- by any number of horrific attrocities -- and things get sketchy. What God says no to the prayers of starving children and yes to pleas of gluttons?

But it's part of a plan which we are not meant to know-- we're told. Maybe not. But maybe we knowing too difficult. Maybe the answer is simply that God created the world, and Man is free to live and learn. Our lives are our own. You may live, you may die. The more we have, the more ways we have to live and die.

Everything does happen. Things happen because of an action--not for a God reason. I don't think God causes the trigger to be pulled, or the intoxicated driver to run over a family, or a car to go off of the road at the worst possible spot. All those things can happen, and they have. God was not part of the reason--in my opinion. God is there to give Grace. Not to cause havoc or despair.