I’ve heard it whispered at hospital bedsides, offered with trembling hands at funerals, and tossed casually across coffee tables when life turns cruel: “Everything happens for a reason.” It’s meant to comfort, to make sense of the senseless. But more often than not, it’s a theological dodge—a way to avoid sitting with the ache, the injustice, the sheer human mess of it all.
Let me be clear: God is not the author of abuse, cancer, car crashes, or cruelty. God does not orchestrate betrayal or poverty to teach us a lesson. And while I believe in redemption, I do not believe in divine puppetry. Free will is real. And it’s dangerous.
We are not chess pieces moved by an omnipotent hand. We are image-bearers with agency, capable of love and harm, healing and destruction. That’s the terrifying beauty of free will: it allows for both grace and grief. It means that sometimes, the reason something happened is because someone chose it. Or neglected to choose differently. Or because systems built on greed and fear were left unchallenged.
When we say “everything happens for a reason,” we risk blaming God for what was never God’s doing. We risk silencing the cry for justice, the need for repentance, the holy rage that fuels change. We risk comforting the comfortable and abandoning the wounded.
I’ve buried babies whose deaths had no reason. I’ve sat with survivors of violence who were told their pain was part of God’s plan. I’ve watched congregations twist themselves into theological pretzels to avoid admitting that sometimes, people just do terrible things. And sometimes, we let them.
But here’s the good news: God is not the reason for every tragedy. God is the response. God is the presence that refuses to leave. The whisper that says, “I’m still here.” The strength to speak truth, to set boundaries, to choose love again. God is not the cause of our suffering— but the companion in it. The redeemer of it. The challenger of it.
So let’s retire the phrase. Let’s stop assigning divine intent to every heartbreak. Let’s honor the complexity of free will and the sacredness of lament. Let’s tell the truth: that sometimes, things happen for no good reason at all. And still, God shows up.
Not to explain it away. But to walk with us through it. To transform what we thought was unredeemable. To remind us that grace is not a reason—it’s a response.
Sharon Cochran is the new minister at the Watonga Methodist Church and serves at Canton United Methodist and the Fay congregation as well.