Did God Want that to Happen?

Genesis 6:6, Ezekiel 33:11, 1 Timothy 2:3-4, Psalm 34:18, Isaiah 53:3, Romans 8:28-29

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That really difficult situation, that really tough thing in your life, is God happy that happened? Did he want that to happen? Now, at first you might say, well, of course God didn’t want that to happen. But I find the more that I talk with people who go through challenging times, I find that there are things that sometimes we say that make it feel like God wanted that bad thing to happen, or that God is happy that it did. And part of why then we struggle is because it seems like, well, why was God so cruel? Why did God want that to happen?

And here’s the thing sometimes people will say, they’ll say, okay, this happened because God wanted to do this, or this happened because God wanted to do that. And there becomes this sense of, okay, God wanted this to happen because of, you know, XYZ thing. He wanted to teach me or to grow me. And sometimes people will talk about God being in charge or God working all things for good. And so therefore something bad happens, well, God must have wanted that.

But Scripture is very clear. There are many things that happen in this world that God isn’t happy about, that are not things that God wanted or wants. For instance, if you look at Genesis chapter six. So this is where the chapter leads up to the flood. We’re told that

The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with sorrow. (Genesis 6:6)

When he saw the violence in this world, he was filled with sadness. This didn’t please God, this didn’t make God happy that there was all this violence. There are things that are happening, that were happening, in the world that God was very sad about. Or Ezekiel chapter 33, the verse first part of verse 11, the Lord says,

As I live, declares the Lord God, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from their way and live. (Ezekiel 33:11)

God doesn’t want the wicked to die. And so when the wicked do, that’s actually something God is sad about. Or first Timothy 2, 3 to 4.

This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:3-4)

God wants everyone to be saved. And so when there are some who do not believe in him, that’s not what God wants. That doesn’t make God happy. And so when you are going through something and you’re like, oh, that was hard. That was tough. You don’t need to see God as well, okay, but God wanted that bad thing to happen. Actually, Scripture describes God as coming close to us and often actually mourning with us. Psalm 34:18 it says,

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.
He saves those whose spirits have been crushed. (Psalm 34:18)

And Isaiah 53, that beautiful chapter that paints this prophetic picture, what a Savior would be, describes the Messiah as one who

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man who knew grief,
who was well acquainted with suffering. (Isaiah 53:3)

See, your God actually meets you in those difficult things, and he mourns with you. He has sadness with you, God, when he sees the sin and brokenness of this world, he mourns that and he grieves that. And that’s actually what motivated him to carry out his plan to set things right. That motivated God the Son to become the man, Jesus. To die in this world. To take on himself our sin, our shame, our suffering, our sadness, our death. But then to come out the other side, to give us hope the other side of it. To give us the hope of his return that day where all things are set right and every tear is wiped away from our eyes, from the eyes of those who have faith in him.

Our God meets us, and he gives us hope the other side of our grief. So then how do we think about the challenging things in our life? Well, first of all, know that God meets you there and he grieves with you. And does God use these things? Yes, absolutely. See, something can be both something that is bad, that is sad. And yet God works something good out of it. And the good that God works, God wants that. He doesn’t necessarily like or is happy about the bad, but he uses it even for his good. That’s what Romans 8:28 is about.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose, because those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:28-29)

He does come alongside and use even those bad things, those things that he mourns with us about. He will even use those things for our good.