5 Reasons God Did Not Stop a Loss from Occurring to You

Why?

That’s the question that lodges in our brains when something terrible happens.

• Why did God let my loved one die?
• Why won’t God physically heal me?
• Why did God let my wife divorce me?
• Why isn’t God letting me marry that man?
• Why won’t God remove my mental suffering?

Why?

Whether it be a death, your own physical suffering, or a relational heartbreak, here are 5 possible reasons for why God did not stop a loss from occurring in your life.

1. For Mysterious Reasons We Will Never Fully Understand But that We Must Fully Accept

I’m going to give you other biblical answers to the “why” question you have. I’m not just going to point to mystery and acceptance. But I do believe it is wise to start here because without humility and surrender, we will never see what God wants us to see (Psalm 138:6).

There are truths in the Bible that don’t change regardless of what bad things happen. God is good. God is kind. God is all powerful. God is holy. God is just. God is love. The losses in life will tempt you to question these truths.

• If God is good, why did he let my loved one die?
• If God is kind, why won’t he remove my physical suffering?
• If God is all powerful, why does he let bad things happen?
• If God is holy and just, why did he let that person sin against me like that?
• If God is love, why didn’t he let me marry the person I love?

How do we answer questions like these? There are many answers we could give. God is still writing the story. God can turn evil into good. God will restore. God allows free will so we can also have the chance to truly love. Yes, there are answers. But ultimately, these theologically correct answers don’t satisfy the question like we really crave. Intellectually, yes. But emotionally? Often these answers fall short.

Thus, the real answer to questions like these is to rephrase them into professions of faith. These are questions rooted in doubting biblical, unchanging truth. Rather than asking, we must start proclaiming.

• My loved one died and God is still good.
• I’m physically suffering and God is still kind.
• Bad things happen and God is still all powerful.
• That person wronged me and God is still holy and just.
• I didn’t get to marry the person I thought I should marry and God is still loving.

As Job confessed, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him . . .” (Job 13:15, KJV).

Before you can get to other answers that God may help you grasp, you must start by surrendering to God’s truth (Isaiah 55:8-9). If you need to always feel the truth for you to believe the truth, you will eventually lose your belief in the truth. But if you believe the truth even when you don’t feel the truth, you will eventually feel the truth again.

Elizabeth Elliot lost her husband when he and 4 other missionaries were martyred by the Waorani tribe. In the epilogue to her book, Through Gates of Splendor, she explains how their deaths may not have resulted in a mathematical “the good outweighed the bad” result. She wrote:

We know, for example, that time and again in the history of the Christian church, the blood of martyrs has been its seed. So we are tempted to assume a simple equation here. Five men died. This will mean x-number of Waorani Christians.

Perhaps so. Perhaps not. Cause and effect are in God’s hands. Is it not the part of faith simply to let them rest there? God is God. I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice. It is the same spirit that taunted, ‘If though be the Son of God, come down from the Cross.’ There is unbelief, there is even rebellion, in the attitude that says, ‘God has no right to do this to five men unless . . .’”

In Mike Rake’s book, Surrendered and Unafraid, he processes his “why” questions after his 27-year-old daughter died after a four-year fight with cancer. He’s a pastor, she was a worship leader, and their community trusted God for a miracle that never came. This forced Mike to reevaluate what he knew about God. He writes:

God is not a quid pro quo God. There is no such thing as a transactional God. Wisdom helps us leave the mathematical section of the library and head over to the mystery aisle where dragons live. God will do or not do as He pleases. And you’ll have to learn to live with that reality. He is not about to be controlled by the likes of me or you.”

We’ve started with mystery and surrender. This is right. We have to humbly follow God in faith, knowing that he is good even when our circumstances are not good.

What follows are some more specific answers that could relate to your “why” question. I’m not saying these answers all apply to all the “why” questions you may be asking. But I believe they will help some of you with some of the questions you have.

2. Wrestling with This Question Is Bringing You Closer to God

I’m not saying God allowed this loss just to teach you a lesson. That is an especially unhelpful answer when our “why” question relates to someone else’s suffering. God didn’t let someone die or leave your life just to teach you a lesson, as that would be a selfish way to view the world, putting ourselves at the center of all other stories. Rather, the lessons we learn through these losses is one way in which God turns evil to good.

When you wrestle with the “why” rather than running from God in anger, his presence breaks you in a healing way. In Genesis 32:22-32, we are given a mysterious story of how Jacob wrestled with God. Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” In the wrestling, Jacob’s hip socket was put out of joint. It then states, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Lastly, it states, “And there he blessed him.” Jacob left with a limp and with his blessing.

The point I’m making is that God will bless you if you keep wrestling with him. Don’t run. Don’t doubt. Keep asking. Keep coming. Keep wrestling.

3. The Gospel Offers Promises that Are “Now and Not Yet”

American Christians are often misled by American prosperity. We have fallen in love with material abundance, and this love has skewed our reading of the Scriptures. The subtle message that creeps into many American pulpits is, “If you trust Jesus, your life will go well. If you don’t trust Jesus, it won’t go well.”

There’s truth to that message, but it’s a truth that can be easily misapplied, especially when viewed through a materialistic lens. Most of us wouldn’t verbalize it like this, but in our hearts, the belief is often, “The good I have is because God is pleased with me. The bad I have is because God is displeased with me.” God does allow us to reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7). But what we reap is not always going to be material or experienced on this earth.

Going back to Mike Rake’s book, Surrendered and Unafraid, that describes what he learned after his daughter died from cancer, he wrote that “to get the foundation of our beliefs in alignment with the bigger story of Scripture, we must understand we are blaming God for withholding things He never promised to give us.”

Because it’s not what we want to hear, we often compartmentalize all the Scriptures about suffering on earth and we elevate all the Scriptures about thriving in Christ; we then end up with a skewed version of God’s promises.

Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, NIV). God never promised us a life without loss if we followed him. Rather, he said we would be victorious in Christ no matter what trouble comes our way. Mike Rake also wrote, “Faith is not a tool to keep you from suffering but should be your response to the suffering and sorrow that hit your life.”

One day, perfect external circumstances and perfect internal peace in Christ will both be given to us (Revelation 21:1-5). But in this life, on this earth, perfect external circumstances cannot be out hope. Scriptures point us to Jesus, in whom we have every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). He is the founder and perfecter of our faith who suffered on earth and still rejoiced in God for the joy set before him (Hebrews 12:2). We are called to do likewise.

The gospel offers us promises that are given now and not yet (1 Corinthians 13:12). Christians are “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

4. This Is an Opportunity to Shine in the Darkness for Christ

The purpose of our life is to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31). God wants the world to see his glory through the blessed lives that Christians live. When we thank God for the joys he’s granted us, this is a powerful witness to the world (1 Timothy 6:17, James 1:17).

But when we don’t have the things we want on this earth, this does not change our purpose. We are still called to glorify God. The losses present us with a different means to bring him glory. Sometimes, this is an even more powerful tool to glorify God before the world.

When you glorify God in the darkness, it is even more pronounced (Philippians 2:14-18).

5. Because the Gospel Is Enough

The truth is, God can do anything. In hope, we rightly proclaim, “All things are possible with God” (Matthew 19:26). However, this does not mean God will give us all the things we could ever possibly want. He has the power do anything, but he won’t always use it in the way we expected or wanted.

This leads us back to where we started, “Why?”

Ultimately, God’s final solution to every problem is the gospel. God doesn’t have to produce the specific miracle we ask for because he’s already produced the final miracle that encompasses every other miracle. Every loss is but an echo of the ultimate loss – our disconnection with God.

We live in the now. God is with us. He weeps when we weep (John 11:35). He does still provide temporal relief sometimes on this earth through tangible answers to prayer. However, God is forever. The solution in the gospel is eternal. It is enough. When we will be fully glorified in God, all the losses will be fully restored. As Ephesians 1:11-12 promises:

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.”