Not Everything Happens for a Reason...

...and yes, I do believe in God.

It seems strange to me that the same people who believe fervently that God gives man freewill believe that God orchestrates every single event in our lives as part of his apparently intricately-precise plan.

But these two things are inconsistent. If I get fired, is it because God wanted me to have a learning experience? Or is it because my boss exercised his free agency to fire me if he felt like it? It's true that God might have impressed on him, "Fire her," or "Don't fire her," but there's no reason to assume my boss is in tune with the promptings of the Spirit.

While there might not be a reason for everything, there's a reason for Everything. Life as a whole has meaning and purpose, man are that they might have joy, and this holds true even if God doesn't always specifically pick out what college we'll be accepted to or who we'll meet or when the people we love die. I believe that everything, including the random vagaries of human agency, has the potential to lead us to fulfill the overarching divine purpose of our lives.

But we're not going to grow into our purpose if we lie around like dead fish, waiting for God to slap us with Meaning. Life is an active process, where we take whatever is handed to us and, with the help of divine inspiration, turn it into something meaningful, building a path to the Purpose, the glorious Reason for it all.