Does God Ordain our Adversities?

“And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.” (Romans 8:28, AMP)

“Then all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before came to him, and they ate bread with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him over all the [distressing] adversities that the Lord had brought on him. And each one gave him a piece of money, and each a ring of gold.” (Job 42:11, AMP)

I think anyone living the human experience can agree that sometimes, life just happens. It’s just a fact of life, that one day you feel like you're flying, only to find the next day that you were actually falling. You were never flying at all. Any number of things could happen to you. You could crash your car. You could lose your job. You could find out your spouse is cheating. You could walk through grieving a loved one. 

Personally, I’ve recently found out someone very close to me– one of my best friends– has cancer. If you’ve ever been in the position where you’re a part of the support system for someone going through cancer, you’ll know there are many emotions attached. There’s grief that life is about to change radically as your loved one walks through treatment; trying to do everything you can and feeling like it’s not enough. There’s worry for the days ahead and the many outcomes that can happen. And at the same time, there’s an adamant and stubborn desire to remain strong for that person, wanting to be encouraging and steadfast and ready to dig your heels in and help that person fight.

John Piper writes in a short pamphlet titled “Don’t Waste Your Cancer,” that “We waste our cancer if we don’t believe it is designed for us by God.” In the church I grew up in, that idea is a foreign one. And the majority of the American church would be in the same camp: God is a God of love and healing, therefore, bad things don’t come from Him. Satan attacks us with bad things to test our devotion to the Lord and we just have to have enough faith to get through it.

I say this with so much love to you, dear reader: Not everything is an attack from the enemy, even those things that are so dark and difficult that you could never understand how a God that is love could not just allow it, but sovereignly ordain it.

And that thought alone will put many believers up in arms. But the fact remains that scripture doesn’t support this idea that Satan masterminds these curveballs meant to steal and destroy from God’s people and that God is shocked by them. When Paul writes that God uses all things and works them together for the good of those that love Him, He doesn’t mean that God works together things He didn’t know or plan was coming and turns them good as we walk through it with Him.

What that scripture means is that God sovereignly ordained everything. Even the bad things. And that He ordains those negative experiences and those hard seasons so that it can all work together to prove His glory and His supremacy over all of creation– Satan included. It’s no secret that sometimes, to get our attention, God has to do something that stops us in our tracks. God is not taken by surprise by the twists and turns of our lives. He has orchestrated them, and to believe otherwise is to take God’s preeminence, omniscience, and sovereignty, and assign power to Satan that doesn’t belong to him.

Does scripture talk about spiritual warfare? Certainly. Does it talk about how Satan prowls like a lion looking to steal, kill, and devour? Absolutely. Both those realities are real, but Satan doesn’t have enough power to where God doesn’t already know what he’s doing. Satan doesn’t operate outside of God’s will or orchestrations.

To believe otherwise would undermine the glory of God and would reveal a serious lack of faith on our part. We cannot believe that He is the all-knowing King of kings and Lord of lords if we believe that all our personal tragedies are “attacks of the enemy.”

Even in the book of Job, a man who knew more suffering than most of humanity– losing his home, his livestock, his wife, children, health, wealth, and prosperity all at once– acknowledges that these distressing adversities were brought on Him by the Lord. 

So let me reiterate: If we believe that God is above all, supremely sovereign, all-powerful and most of all, good, then we cannot draw the line and limit Him at the bad stuff that happens to us. Because that bad stuff is all used to prove God’s glory and His awesomeness. In Job, God used all that tragedy to show that no matter what, Job would hold his ground and be a righteous man and honor God. And ultimately, God shows His might, power, and glory, by restoring Job above and beyond what He lost. 

So, yes, in the vein of what John Piper writes, we would be wasting our adversity if we did not acknowledge that the adversity was ordained by God– even cancer.

When trouble finds us and rocks us, we shouldn’t immediately turn around and cry an attack of the enemy. Instead, we should trust that God has not only allowed these things to happen to us, but designed them. And it’s not necessarily to punish us for something we did, but instead it’s something He’s ordained in order for us to be drawn deeper unto Himself… in order for His glory to be seen in not only you, but the people around you watching you walk through that tragedy.

With my friend going through cancer, I’m seeing more in each passing day that my faith is being strengthened simply because I have to lean on God and cling to Him more every day. And by drawing near to Him as I intercede for her, I can be a better encouragement and remind her not to focus on odds or scans or prognosis, but to lean on Christ and allow Him to be the barometer for her healing whether or not we ever see it in this lifetime. 

God will be glorified. Of that, I am certain. However He deems this journey to end.