In an attenpt to explain life's trials and injustices, some people have resorted to embracing the idea that what happened must have been "God's will." So your son ends up brain damaged when a drunk driver hits his car, and some well-meaning believer tries to reassure you that, "God knows best." Or a baby is born severely handicapped and people tell the parents that this must be God's will for their family. A young woman is murdered in the park or dies of cancer, and people say it must have been "her time."
The only problem with this approach is that it makes a mockery of what the Bible teaches about the nature and character of God. James, for example, tells us in chapter one of his New Testament letter, that all good gifts come from God, and that negative things - such as sin and temptation - never have their source in Him. It simply doesn't hold water to say that it's God's will for a child to die of starvation, or a young woman to be raped, or a middle aged father to be murdered at the railway station.
So, how do we explain the bad things that happen in the world around us? Can things happen that are not God's will?
Well, yes, of course! The Bible tells us that it is God's will for everyone to be saved (2 Peter 3: 9) .... but there are millions of people around the world who don't cooperate with that and who choose to live their lives without God. The Bible tells us that it's God's will for us to rejoice at all times, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances (read 1 Thessalonians 5: 16 - 18) but sometimes we refuse to do that, preferring instead to wallow in our own worry and self pity. Yes, plenty of things happen that aren't God's will!
Why doesn't God step in a stop those things? Because our free will is one of his most precious gifts to us; it's part of what makes us created in the image of God. If God stepped in to prevent the alcoholic from taking another drink or to prevent the mugger from robbing an old lady in the street, His justice would require Him also to step in and prevent you or me when we're unthankful or when we're about to say unkind words that hurt someone in our lives. We'd no longer be human beings in the image of God; we'd be puppets or robots, and that was never God's purpose when He created mankind.
This means, however, that we will sometimes experience bad things because of our own wrong or sinful choices... just as we will sometimes be the victim of the sins and selfish choices of others. Those are the times when we need to reach out for the restoring and/or redeeming power of God.
Sometimes God restores: the leukaemia is healed; the stolen car is found; the falsely accused pastor is vindicated and has a powerful ministry again...
But some damage, some consequences, are irreversible, and that's when we need to trust God to redeem: to give a new life purpose to the athlete whose leg was amputated; to mend the broken heart of the person devastated by divorce, or, as in Paul's situation, to open new doors of ministry for the missionary who had to spend decades in prison.
As mentioned in the post above, sometimes God redeems to the extent that the detour ends up being a destiny. God sovereignly "adjusts" His will to bring about the truth of that oft-quoted scripture: He works all things for good for those who love Him. (Romans 8: 28) All things, even the bad ones!
For example, it was never God's will for the people of Israel to have a king. He Himself wanted to be their ruler, but the people were stubborn and insisted on having a king, just like all the surrounding nations. (You can read about this in 1st Samuel chapter 8 for example, where the people are warned about all the consequences there will be to having a king.) But once that happened, God's good and loving purposes for the people of Israel were not going to be thwarted. He had to adjust His original will, and so we could say that it became His will for Saul to become king, and later for David to become king.
Was it originally God's will for Paul's missionary calling to be interrupted and for him to spend half of his life in Roman prisons? I don't know the answer to that question.... but even if it wasn't what God wanted, history has shown us how He turned that around, making Paul's prison years some of His most fruitful, with a writing legacy that impacts the Christian world even two thousand years later.
If God could do that for Paul and for Israel, He can also do it for you or for me. We live in a fallen world and it's a fact of life that bad things will happen. (We ourselves even cause some of them!) But it doesn't matter what challenges or injustices life throws at us...... we can trust in the love and power of a redeeming God and, like Paul, we just might see a detour turned into a destiny or a disaster turned into a blessing from God.
