Many of us have tossed that phrase around for years, but sometimes it hits a little close to home. There are those times when we’re left questioning just exactly what God’s will has to do with the rising creeks and rivers in our lives, whether literal or figurative. How do we reconcile a loving, all-powerful God with the difficult, painful times of life?

There is no pastor who has not been asked that sort of question. When illness or accident strikes, when relationships crumble, when floodwaters rise or earthquakes topple mountains, when terror strikes close to home, we ask, “Where is God in all of this?” Shouldn’t God be protecting us from this, or, more troubling yet, is our pain actually God’s WILL?

I don’t believe that God wishes pain for God’s people, however, we live in a Creation in which pain is allowed. We live in a world of freedom, in which both bad and good occur and in which both bad and good choices may be made. To live otherwise would not be truly human. Sure, God could protect us from all things, but would that really be life?

To paraphrase an obnoxious bumper sticker, “Life Happens.” The blessing in the midst of life’s difficulties is that we have a God who has walked among us in Jesus and continues to be with us in all of our ways. God’s wisdom and will is not to make life perfect, but to bring us through all that is life. The promise of Scripture is not that all things will be good, but that God can and does bring some good out of all things (Romans 8:28). Further, we most often are God’s tools for doing so.

So, when the storm clouds gather and the rivers rise, remember that, while God sometimes calms the storm, often God instead calms the child.