One of the big questions in life is ‘Why do things happen the way they happen?’

There could be many and endless answers to this question, but for what its worth, here are my thoughts.

One way of looking at it could be to say that there is no God or higher beings that exist, so everything that happens depends on me and my circumstances. In other words, I have to take the cards that life deals me and try to make the best I can out of them. If I want to achieve something in this life, I need to get on and do it, hoping that sickness, crime, natural disasters or other forces out of my control don’t get in the way.

This approach can be modified using a phrase that a Greek man once described to me as apparently being a Greek saying (anyone?) ‘συν αθήνα και χείρα κίνει– the sum of Athena and my hands’. This I understood to mean that what I have in life depends on a combination of what the God’s (i.e. Athena) give me and what I manage to achieve with my own hands.

Both these points of views have something in common. They emphasise me and what I am able to make out of life. The first one however suggests that other factors that influence my life are merely dependant on the nature around me, whereas the second recognises that there could be divine beings but implies that their involvement in my life is limited.

Personally, I believe in the exists of just one God, the God of the Christian Bible. Much could be said about this, but I have explained my reasons simply elsewhere. This then gives rise to two other possible perspectives about why things are the way they are.

The Bible contains the concept of sin, which can be simply though of as humans not doing as they were created to do. Over the centuries many peoples and cultures have had an idea along these lines. Thus, we can consider the things that happen as a consequence of this sin. A simple example would be the Canaanite people who lived many centuries ago in what is today Israel. They believed that humans had to offer certain sacrifices to the God Baal. If he was pleased, he would then send rain so that crops would grow. In other words, in their thinking, the weather depended on the mood of Baal.

In a Christian sense, we can take things a little further and say that the world is the way it is due to the consequences of sin, which Christianly speaking is disobedience to God. The first humans didn’t obey God’s command not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the result was that suffering and death entered the world. Hence, in a general way, everything that happens is connected to that.

However, as human beings, we are more interested in the question of why certain things happen to me. ‘Why me?’ is an age-old refrain. Here, there would be three possibilities.

The first would be that things have gotten out of God’s control. Similar to the Athena example above, some people might say that although God set the world in motion, he is no longer influencing what is happening, whether intentionally or he is just not powerful enough.

Secondly, there is the idea of karma. The things that happen to me are proportional to the good or bad that I have done. This means that good things in my life are a reward from God, but bad things are a punishment for my sins.

In the Old Testament in the Bible, we do indeed find this sort of idea. An example is Deuteronomy chapter 28, where the blessings for obeying God and curses for disobeying Him are described.

However, there is a third idea, which springs from the fact that we have both the Old and New testament and so have to interpret them together. The point is how to do we define good and bad? In Romans 3 from verse 10 we see a number of quotes about how humans aren’t actually good. Maybe we are based on our own standards, but we fall short when compared to God’s standard. Interestingly, these quotes are all from the Old Testament and remind us that this isn’t a new concept. Just reading the Old Testament stories we can see how often Israel, God’s chosen people, failed to keep God’s laws.

In our own day and age, we just have to look at the world around us, or to think about our own personal experiences in life, to see that something’s not right. This is all to say that God doesn’t deal with us on a merit system because if this was the case, we would all merit punishment as we have all done at least something wrong in our lives.

This all sounds pretty gloomy, but it’s just leading up to the third perspective which is that God is in control and the things that happen are permitted by Him so that in His grace and love, His good and righteous plans can be fulfilled.

That’s all well and good when we are talking about positive things in our lives. We want good things to happen to us even though we don’t deserve them, but what about the bad things that happen? Here the question of our faith in God enters the equation. Do we trust Him that the bad things that happen are ultimately fulfilling a good purpose?

One example is John Newton (1725-1807). He was a slave trader, but after experiencing a storm at sea, he decided to seek God. Eventually, after ill health, he gave up slave trading, became a Christian minister and eventually was involved in working for the abolishment of the slave trade. He also wrote amongst others the famous hymn ‘Amazing Grace.’

So, we see that out of two bad things, near shipwreck in a storm and illness, good came. He gave up slave trading, served many as a minister, wrote hymns and helped to abolish the slave trade.

In conclusion then, there are in essence two responses to the things that happen to us. One is to focus on ourselves, seeking an introspective explanation and solutions based on our human abilities. The other is to focus on God and ask Him what He wants us to learn and do as a result of what has happened in our lives.