Do you believe that God has a plan for everyone?

Question

My fiance died not too long ago, and all I have been hearing for the past 3 months is "it was God's plan for him" or "God was calling him". I've heard it more than enough times, and I disagree. I think that everyone has free will and that our lives are deaths are not planned by God. By saying that God has a plan for everyone, that means he plans for adults and children to be murdered, raped, abused, tortured, starved, etc. etc. That doesn't sound like something an all loving God would do. If you believe that God has a plan for everyone, do you still believe he is all loving? How can you, when he lets such awful things happen to innocent people?

Answer 1

I am very sorry to hear about your fiance.

I think it is more like in the story in JOB!

When something bad happens it is human nature to want to help. When there is nothing us humans can do we need to "PUT IT IN SOME ONE else'S HANDS". So as a Culture we started saying things like "it was God's plan for him" or "God was calling him". Just like we say "God Bless you" when somebody sneezes. That started because people thought evil spirits left your body when you sneezed.

We All have FREE WILL both good and bad people. If God stopped bad people from hurting good people then he would be interfering with the bad peoples FREE WILL.

According to St. Augustine
“God is unconstrained by human limitations of time and place, seeing all of our lives simultaneously. The choices we make, such as in this maze, do not undermine God’s omniscience.”

Blessings

Answer 2

I am so sorry for your loss. And I am so sorry for the insensitive people who try to gloss over your grief by giving you such an empty explanation. I don't think they are intentionally being insensitive, sometimes people just don't know what to say and by bringing God into they think they are helping. I've never suffered a loss like yours, but I have experienced devastating losses in my own life. I had plenty of people tell me "God has a plan." What does that even really mean...how does that explain it, how does that make anyone feel better? All it felt like was people telling me to be happy when all I needed was to experience the loss and move on. I believe we all have a purpose for being here, and that we have the free will to make our own decisions. There are things that happen which we have no explanation for, only the hope that there was a purpose, or that there will be. Your fiance clearly touched your life, and I'm sure countless people's lives around him. What greater purpose can there be than to touch other's lives with joy and love? I think that there is a danger in thinking God has a plan for everyone... it tends to suggest that he didn't give us a brain and intuition and common sense to draw our own conclusions and make our own decisions. I believe in God...but I also believe he placed in us the ability to make of our lives what we will. Tragedy is an unfortunate by-product of this world. May you find comfort in knowing you are not alone.

Answer 3

Interesting question, maybe the first one ever. :) God does have a plan and we will never know what that plan is until our time comes and all is revealed to us. However, like any other plan, God places choices in front of us and gives us the knowledge necessary to make the correct choice. Unfortunately, God is not the only player in this life of ours and temptation rears up directing us toward a false answer and a false path. I truly believe some of these things (AIDS, poverty, starvation, etc.) are meant to test us. I am tested every day and it is frustrating because I do not always have the answer. And, even though I have patience to seek the answer, believe me creditors and other idiots have no patience what-so-ever. Believe what you will just live your life through wisdom and good choices and you too will see what your plan is for you. If you doubt my sincerity, both of my older brothers have died and my father recently died. We all face tests and the unknown. I remember watching my dad wonder why my oldest brother die. I remember watching him cry and beat himself up emotionally when my 18 year old cousin had a stroke and died while my dad was laying sick in bed dying. I remember all these things vividly and do not understand but I do understand how God tests us and how the evils of the world make us stronger.

Answer 4

I'm sorry to hear of your loss, I hope you are coping well.

There is no plan, we have free will, after all, look at those who take their own lives, do you think that was planned? Sometimes our free will combined with the free will of others can cause disastrous results. When thinking about how everyone has a will all their own it's easy to see how things can go wrong.

The best you can do now is use your free will to move on, I'm not saying the forget him or not miss him, I'm saying don't let your loss ruin the rest of your life. I'm sure he would want you to continue on and live a happy life even if he's not there to share it with you but in a way he IS there, he is a part of you and always will be.

But straight to the point, there is no plan, after all, why try if everything is already planned out for you? After all, if there was a plan then there would be no point in trying to be successful if "god's" plan is for you to be poor your whole life. See my logic here?

Answer 5

This is a case of the comforting lie that is religion falling down, flat on it's back when faced with reality. Your religion doesn't have a good answer for your loss, other then a thin, lame "Well, God has a plan for everyone." That isn't an answer, it's a dodge.

Bad things happen. There are no reasons, other then plain cause and effect. They just happen. They serve no higher purpose.

Religion is delusion. One of the main objectives in life (for me, at least) is to attune one's self with reality, to the greatest degree possible. Embracing religion is truly a step in the wrong direction. Forget god. He's a fantasy.

Answer 6

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. Some Christians here will probably try to console you with the nonsense you're already skeptical about. So be it.
We live with at least some suffering in our lives; that's a major fact for everyone. Some have more than their fair share. But god doesn't have anything to do with it, quite simply because god does not exist.
But you exist. And you have the abilty to decide what to do with your time. And that's the best freedom one can know. So if you spend your effort well, and learn from your own pain that you can become more compassionate with others, then you will have spent your time well. And you don't need any distracting afterlife, heaven, hell, or religious guilt to live a good life.

Answer 7

There was a wonderful plan. Man was in charge and gave it all away for just a taste of disobedience.

Satan is the god of this world and bad things happen everyday, countless tragedies because of our ancestors disobedience. Jesus built a bridge between God and man so that man can not only have eternal life after death, but, live an abundant life here and now. Life is hard and if you hold to Gods unchanging hand, you will better understand what is going on if you stay faithful. I know it's hard, we lost our youngest son to heart failure and now, 15 years later we see things more clearly and the good that happens when you learn to praise Him in the Storm!

Remember what Paul said to the Hebrews
Heb 10:35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.
Heb 10:36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.
Heb 10:37 For, "Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay;
Heb 10:38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him."
Heb 10:39 But (((we are not))) of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who (((have faith))) and preserve their souls.

I am very sorry for your pain, fight the fight, hold on to what you have, He is holding on to you and you can never be plucked from His hand.

Answer 8

So sorry to hear what happened. : (

As a non believer, well I can't give you a religious answer... But from just my own life, while I always 'believed' in some symbolic sense of "meant to be," the way I look at it now is that even if something could be meant to be, still nothing is ever guaranteed. Could always have been meant for each other, but sometimes life just takes some really bad turns. Know that all too well myself.

Take care.

Answer 9

If God had a plan his Angels would not have had to locate the good Lot amid the bad; with a plan God would keep the good
in close reach. With a plan Lot could have reached safety with a less salty spouse; but, no, Lot recieved instructions for
his welfare but his party made their own choices. God's first
word to us should always be, 'Believe'. The rest will follow.

Answer 10

First, I'm truly sorry for your loss. It really stinks when people don't know what to say and yet they want to be loving and supportive so they just throw out the old "it was all part of God's plan" line in an attempt to comfort you.
I do believe that God has a plan for our lives but given the freewill to choose how we'll live our lives has taken "God's in control" of what happens on this planet right out of the equation.
God gave Adam stewardship of this planet. God relinqueshed legal authority over the planet and it's occupants. Adam gave this up in the garden which is why Christ had to return to the planet as a man--so that He could have a legal access and pay the price for man's fall. He gave back this authority to those who choose to follow Him by telling us to use HIS Name as the authority by which we speak and command. We need to give Him legal access to our lives by choice.
Once again, I'm sorry for you loss. My prayers are with you tonight.

Paul E: Jesus already defeated Satan. Now it's just a matter of God's people living their lives in victory, rather than believing the lies the enemy would have us believe.