Collapsing Bridges and the Sovereignty of God

My wife and I were at a Bible conference in Cedar Falls, Iowa, when we learned about the collapse of the I-35W bridge on August 1st in downtown Minneapolis. The evening session had just concluded and the conference director asked us to stay a couple of minutes to respond to the tragic event in Minneapolis. He then shared what had happened and offered a prayer on behalf of the people who had been involved in the collapse, and their relatives.

As soon as we were dismissed, my wife and I got to a phone and tried to contact our son, daughter, and son-in-law. They and we are all residents of the Twin Cities. After getting a busy signal on our daughter's cell phone and leaving a voice message on our son-in-law's cell phone, we finally contacted our son. He told us that everyone was all right. The next morning, we called my sister and learned that her two daughters and the husband of one of them, who also live in the Twin Cities, were also all right.

We were grateful and we thanked God for the safety of our loved ones. Doing that, however, raises some questions: (1) Was it really God who protected our loved ones? (2) If so, how about the ones who died or were injured? Why didn't God protect them? (3) Did some people deserve to die or be injured? Finally (4) How do we understand God at times like this?

The big issue for many believers is the sovereignty of God. Simply put, to say that God is sovereign is to say that God is in control and can do whatever God wants to do. The Bible, in some places, goes so far as to say that good and bad both come from God (see Lamentations 3:38, for example). Those who take that verse extremely seriously would say that God is responsible for and causes everything that happens. Our part is to accept what happens and to be encouraged by the knowledge that God is working in and through and behind our lives.

Another issue is that of human free will. By assigning responsibility to human beings for the circumstances of life, we relieve God of the guilt of causing disasters to happen. For many people, focusing on free will is the most intelligent way to see the events of life, whatever they may be.

Where does the true answer lie? I don't have any easy answers, but let me offer a couple of suggestions that may help at times like the collapse of a bridge, whether it is an actual bridge or the collapse of a relationship or the end of a loved one's life.

First, we are in a poor position to say whether something is good or bad. We lack the perspective to see, in the long run, the apparent good that may come out of an apparent evil or calamity. This is not to minimize the tragedy of lives being lost in Minneapolis. It is to say that, according to Romans 8:28, "All things work together for good." That doesn't necessarily mean that all things are good in and of themselves, but that all things can eventually result in something good. A friend of mine in a church I once pastored almost lost his wife to an infection caused by a doctor who briefly blacked out while performing surgery on her. As a result of that experience, my friend said he gained a new sensitivity to people who were going through the same kind of thing.

His wife's flirting with death was not good in itself from his perspective, but something good came out of it.

This leads to a second suggestion: We believers need to allow for the working of God in our lives. Life is not just about us and our desires. Life is about God and God's plans. When we say that God is sovereign, perhaps we need to understand that as meaning that God's ultimate plans for us and the world will not finally be defeated. There may be detours along the way because of human free will, stubbornness, and wickedness, but God will eventually triumph.

In the meantime, let's not be so harsh on a God we perceive to be weak and uncaring, but, instead, to patiently wait to see what good things the future brings.