Don’t Blame God

Recently I read an article about a diver caught up in a terrible accident. He came to the surface near the shore and was hit by a speed boat. He was gravely injured when he was cut by the motor blades, losing one arm, and almost losing both legs; he was “lucky” to be alive. His recovery was long and difficult. Eventually, he made a full recovery and returned to his work at the Marine life Center, but with a new mission. Upon recovery, he teamed up with the driver of the boat who caused the accident. Together they became involved in making “positive changes for marine safety”. This article is about that incident in the light of Divine Providence, and the proper place for God in the misfortunes of life.

Everything Happens For a Reason

The victim was a religious man who concluded that “everything happens for a reason”. This is what caught my attention, my focus, and served as a catalyst for this article because I needed to question the meaning of that expression, firstly, for my own benefit and spiritual growth and secondly, to share the results of my inquiry with others.

What does the expression, “Everything happens for a reason”, really mean? Does it mean everything happens for the best, or that God’s will is the cause of everything that occurs?  What did it mean to the victim? What does it mean to me? Objectively speaking is it true? I’m sure that for the victim this philosophy or way of thinking was his way of putting his life back together with meaning, purpose, and of course hope. There is nothing wrong with that but personally, I don’t buy it; I don’t think it’s true. I don’t think that is the way the world works, and I don’t think that it is the way God works.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking a pessimistic view, nor am I saying that we live in a hopeless world without meaning or purpose. My intent and interpretation of this tragic event is found in the following quote: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God…” (Romans 8:28).

Free Will

My interpretation is that things happen usually because of the way we use our “free choice.”  The cause of most events is not Providential but occurs in the natural order of things where God is not the direct cause. We cause things to happen by the way we exercise our free will. The speed boat was going too fast because the driver chose to do this, and he wasn’t paying attention to “the road ahead.” The victim had limited or no “diver down buoys” because he chose to not have them. Perhaps he was too close to shore and didn’t feel the need to continue their use; I don’t know. Whatever the reasons, those reasons were the choices made by the people involved. Our free will is a gift and a wonderful gift. With free will we are able to experience God’s love and love for each other; without it, I doubt that love would exist at all.

God’s Grace

The result of the accident was devastating yet good came out of it, forgiveness, concern for the safety of others, charity that healed wounds, and continues to work for the benefit of others. Free will is involved, but there is more than just free will at work in the results. God’s grace is apparent in this story, not in the cause of the accident, but His presence is apparent in the recovery, which is miraculous, and in the outcome; the charity and forgiveness. God’s grace is apparent in the victim and the driver of the boat working together healing themselves and helping others by enacting stricter speed boat laws and rules for proper use of diving buoys.

Life is Messy

Another article from a Christian book written by Matthew Kelly, Life is Messy, describes how broken pieces or broken lives can be put back together, not the same as before, forever changed, but put back together in a way that is even more beautiful, more purposeful, more meaningful. He uses the example of Kintsugi Art, which is a Japanese art form whereby broken pieces of pottery are put back together with special glue and gold. The gold (and glue) binds the broken pieces and at the same time displays a new creation—better than before, different, broken, repaired, yet more beautiful and more valuable. The same thing can happen with “broken lives.”

If we turn to God and ask for His intervention, in the healing, repairing our lives and the lives of others. Through His grace, we can experience a better life. Though disaster may strike, God can collect and mend the broken pieces of our life creating something better and more beautiful, but we need to turn towards Him and use our free will in simplicity and faith to ask for His intervention.

I close with a quote from Matthew Kelly which may cover some of the gaps in my presentation and lend some defense to my contentions:

Life is a mystery and there will be things we will never understand in this life. We can oversimplify them to satisfy our desire to know, but in sin doing so, we are only deceiving ourselves and creating illusions that will eventually need to be painfully dismantled.