Everything does NOT happen for a reason

I've heard it over and over from Rio - "everything happens for a reason." Usually it's from someone who didn't win a medal but sometimes from those who did. But I hear it all around, from non-athletes commenting about life.

Everything happens for a reason is a LIE! It's simply not true.

This is the phrase used to make ourselves feel better that there must be a reason for something that didn't work out; or something horrible that happened. We say it in hopes that Someone is in charge of everything. If Someone is not in charge, what's the meaning of life!

Everything doesn't happen for a reason because: It would mean that every evil act originated in the mind of God before it came to be in the actions of mass murderers, rapists and pedophiles. If it happens for a reason then that Someone must have planned it. This simply is not true.

Someone is not responsible for planning the difficult, evil, bad things that happen in our world. But someone (notice the small "s") is.

Ok, everything DOES happen for a reason, sort of. Let's take the Rio Olympics for instance.

People don't win gold medals for a great cosmic reason. They win because they were the best on that day at that moment thanks to an enormous amount of hard work and discipline. That's the reason they win.

People don't lose races because Someone has a cosmic grand plan and picks who wins and loses, like manipulating Marionettes. They lose because they weren't the best on that day at that time; they lose because someone else cheated; the lose because of a mistake on that day. That's the reason they lose.

So, sure, everything happens for a reason but that's not the way we use the phrase. We use it as a way to have an answer for things that have no answers. We use it so that we can blame something other than ourselves.

Why do some things happen:

• Some people do stupid things. Take #LochMess for instance. There were some stupid choices made. Irresponsible decisions. None of this happened for a reason.

• Some people are evil. The Holocaust did not happen for a reason. It happened because someone decided to set himself up as god. When people do that, bad things happen.

Here's the truth: God will use everything if we'll trust Him to do it.

We learn more from the difficult circumstances and our poor decisions than from the other things in our lives. I hate that that is the case but it's true.

I don't know how God does it but He can bring good things out of the worst of circumstances. I have stories. You may have stories. But not everyone has stories.

I think it's mostly in the way we respond to the difficult and evil things that happen to us or are caused by our stupid choices. 

If we believe that each mistake, each evil, each loss is a final statement about who we are, we may not recover. "I did something stupid" becomes "I am stupid." 

However, if we believe that those things happened but are not the final say, merely a chapter rather than the end of the book, then we can recover. "I did something stupid" becomes "let's not do it again."

This is by no means a thorough discussion of the topic. Perhaps it's a stab at hope for a man and some other young men who blew it in different ways. I hope it won't be approached as the end of the book. I always believe there's hope, that there's always the possibility of change, because God can work good things out of anything if we'll let Him.