Does God Use Tragedy to Manipulate?
A good God works all things for good to those who say yes to His love. Working all things for good is what the authority of Love looks like. Jesus didn’t live on earth to reveal that God is in control; He came to reveal the authority of our Father’s always-good love. God is not in control, He is Love and Love has all authority.
To suggest that God allows evil things to happen to us for our own good is to suggest that God partners with the enemy to grow our faith. It’s ridiculous. He is either always good or He is bi-polar.
I wonder if we have such a rash of bi-polar in the western world because the church teaches a controlling God who is always good except when we make Him mad.
“I would like to suggest that many of us live a ‘mostly good’ gospel because we only know a ‘mostly good’ God.”The church has often represented a God who is about control instead of authority, manipulation instead of freedom, shame instead of love. You just never know what you are gonna get with Him, He is high one day and low the next. I would like to suggest that many of us live a “mostly good gospel” because we know a “mostly good God.”
Often the Bible is interpreted through our experience instead of His Love. We allow our intellect, our observations, and our experience to mold our belief regarding the nature of God. But He is light; there is no darkness in Him! He is always good, regardless of our experiences. And when we live in this conviction we have the keys, the freedom to see Him as He truly is. Scripture confirms it, the life of Jesus, perfect theology, confirms it. “God is love,” “God is light and there is no darkness in Him.”
If we are not convinced that God is love and the perfection of His love is the fullness of His authority, if we aren’t convinced that God is love and His love is perfectly good, if we think God is controlling, even a little bit, then we are forced to navigate through a faith journey with a Bi-Polar God.
If we aren’t convinced of an always good and perfect Love we will read the Bible through the lens of control, we will see our relationship with God through the lens of control, our relationships, our motivations, our security will all suffer doubt and insecurity. We will be forced to partner with tragedy because it was in God’s hands.
I have heard a controlling God taught for far too long. Recently a preacher raised a question is his message that insinuated that Jesus allowed Lazarus to die in order to get the most “bang for the buck” regarding Mary and Martha’s faith. He asked a question, “What encourages your faith more, healing before you die or resurrection after you’re dead?”
When God is in control you have to ask that question, a question that at its core undermines faith. The premise behind the question is wrong. When we read our Bibles through the lens of control, we let the circumstances determine God’s nature. When this happens we will find ourselves asking questions that compromise God’s perfect love. That’s a dangerous road to travel, one that doesn’t lead to life.
Roman 8:28 says, “God works all things for the good of those who love him…” That’s not a description of what He does, it’s a description of His love nature – the power of sovereign Love.
The scripture doesn’t say God allows bad things to happen so you can have more faith. It says He is redeeming all things, even the bad things, to good. He is a relentless Redeemer.
“God can work a tragedy to our good because that’s His nature. But He doesn’t instigate or allow a tragedy in order to build our faith.”The fact that Mary and Martha grew exponentially in faith through Lazarus’s death and resurrection was the evidence of His goodness, not the evidence of a God with a bi-polar nature; a God who partners with death in one moment only to raise the dead in the next.
God can work a tragedy to our good because that’s His nature. He is love, His love is sovereign and always good. But He doesn’t instigate or allow a tragedy in order to build our faith.
When we think God instigates and then builds our faith through tragedy, we are letting our circumstances define the nature of God. Suddenly we are forced to live in relationship with a Bi-Polar God. And a Bi-Polar God is a God who can’t be trusted. And when our trust is compromised, then intimacy with God either becomes a principle or a concept utterly rejected.
He works all things to good to those who love Him, He redeems and restores. Why? Because He is perfectly good and He can’t help but work things to good to those that say yes to His love. That’s His sovereign love nature.
Say yes to His love today.
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Jason Clark is a writer, speaker and lead communicator at A Family Story ministries. His mission is to encourage sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, to grow sure in the love of an always-good heavenly Father. He and his wife, Karen, live in North Carolina with their three children. Website: www.afamilystory.org
