For

For is pretty much another way of saying because, just fancier. Because is one of those words we hear so often that we take it for granted. We don't think about its meaning. When we use the word, we are stating that there is a relationship, that two things are connected in a very particular way. We are saying that one thing exists because of another thing (or the action of another thing). No matter how parents and teachers may use it, because is not a reason; however, it points us toward the truth that there is a reason. Whatever we speak of, there is a reason: the sunrise, a rainshower, love, babies--they all have a reason, they all have a cause, and that is God.


Someone is bound to make the assertion that there are a lot of bad things in the world and then ask the question about whether God also caused all these things. God created a wondrous thing when He made the universe. Each part of it is amazing, and it all fits together in ways we cannot begin to comprehend. We have to remember that some things we may label as bad are not bad in and of themselves: rain, ants, ice, halitosis--they all have a place in the big picture even though we may not always appreciate their presence in our lives. There are other things--cancer, earthquakes--that we can possibly understand on an intellectual level but that we cannot begin to fathom on a spiritual level. And we do not have to understand how it all fits together and why some pieces don't make sense. What we have to grasp is that God understands.



When I was in grad school, I played Dungeons and Dragons--I was, in fact, the Dungeon Master (that's Chief Geek to you). As Dungeon Master, I created the world in which the other players' characters existed. I designed the dungeons and castles and villages in which the adventures took place. I populated the world I created with monsters and villains. I set it all up. Then the players got involved. Just because I set up a situation in which the characters in the game might encounter a dragon and, if they killed it, receive chests filled with gold and jewels, that did not mean that they would kill the dragon or get the treasure; they might not even find the dragon. Any number of things could happen because each of the players had an opportunity to do whatever he or she wanted. God has set up our world, and it is millions of times more wonderful than anything I could ever imagine. It is more intricate, more complicated, more beautiful, and there are millions of individuals making decisions each moment. God's creation is filled with His perfection, but the part we inhabit is also filled with our imperfection.


I am not saying that we cause all the bad things in the world. I am not asserting that earthquakes and cancer are man-made. I will concede that sometimes they are helped along by man, but they are bigger than us and they exist whether we exist or not. We have free will, but we cannot will such things into existence.

What we have to realize, though, is that it is all within God's creation: the rainbows and the kittens and the lightning bugs and the snakes and the tornadoes and the flu. For whatever reason, God has included all these things in the big picture. We cannot begin to understand, we cannot grasp God's ultimate design, but we can accept that it is God's and that He is in control. When we are faced with a because that we cannot wrap our heads around, we can turn to God and know that He understands. When bad things happen, we should not wonder where God was but we should know that He is there.

When my father died, I had a terrible time getting through the grieving process. I wondered why my dad died and other people did not. I thought that if life were fair, then those others--the ones that I perceived as deserving life less than my father--should all be dead in his place. From what I understand, this is not an uncommon kind of thinking in this situation. However, while I might not understand why things happen, I can at least turn to God and know that He understands.

This understanding by proxy, this turning over everything to God, might sound like a way of avoiding dealing with anything, but I don't agree. I think that it is the only way to deal with anything. Once we realize that it all belongs to God--that we belong to God, that the world belongs to God, that every single particle in all of creation belongs to God--then we can begin to function. Until we see that God is the because, then we are swimming against the current and, like Alice running with the Red Queen in Looking-Glass Land, we will never get anyplace and we will be lucky to even stay where we are.