On Good Friday in 2009, I went for a run on the local greenway in Murfreesboro, Tennessee—my hometown. There were tornado watches that day, but in Murfreesboro tornado watches are common. It’s easy to ignore them. As I did that day.
The first two miles along the wooded greenway were uneventful. But when I turned around to head back to the car, it began to rain. No worries, I thought. I was wearing a new rain jacket. I’d be fine.
Then, halfway back to the car, lightning began to strike around me. I knew it was serious, but I assumed I could wait it out. I crouched down the slope beside the trail, near the river.
After a moment or two, I heard a rumble in the distance.
At first, I didn’t recognize it. It sounded like a train—but something about it was different. The hairs on my arms began to stand up. My gut churned with a sudden sense of dread, even as my mind tried to make sense of the deep, rolling sound. Whatever it was, it was getting louder—and it was moving fast.
There’s no way that’s a tornado, my head said.
But it was.
Within seconds a black wall burst through the trees around me, and suddenly I was staring at an EF-4 tornado thundering down on top of me like a massive explosion.
I grabbed the nearest tree, wrapped my arms around it, and braced myself.
The forest blew apart with a million crashes, and I found myself in the middle of the most powerful tornado in the United States that entire year—wearing nothing but a T-shirt, shorts, and a thin jacket. Seconds in and I was clinging to a tree while my legs flapped in the wind like a flag.
“Seconds in and I was clinging to a tree while my legs flapped in the wind like a flag.”
Sometimes now, I look back on that apocalyptic day and feel as though it were a dream. But it wasn’t. The Good Friday tornado of 2009 cut a 23-mile path through Rutherford County, Tennessee. Eight hundred businesses and homes were damaged. Fifty-one people were treated for injuries. Two people were killed.[1]
My experience of the tornado was deeply personal. In the eye of the tornado, I felt the intimate and sacred presence of God. But after the tornado, I also felt survivor’s guilt. Why did I live, when others, just as deserving, didn’t? After all, the entire forest was leveled by the storm, but strangely, the tree I held onto stood firm that day. Two trees next to me were picked up by the tornado and then thrown down on top of me, breaking my leg and splitting my head open. But somehow, I was still able to walk to a nearby parking lot before passing out in front of an emergency worker’s truck.
And I’ve also had another feeling, a very strange feeling. Since the Good Friday tornado, I have had the irrational sense that the tornado was looking for me that day. I know it is not logical, but somehow the whole experience felt like some cosmic power had rolled the dice, and on Good Friday my number came up. I felt as though I had to be in that tornado. As if the tornado would have found me no matter where I’d been.
“I have had the irrational sense that the tornado was looking for me that day.”
The Greeks had a name for this seemingly random power: Tyche. Tyche was the goddess of luck, a whimsical goddess who might, for no reason at all, give undeserved abundance to one and undeserved misery to another. In Rome she was called Fortuna, and she was sometimes depicted carrying a ball or a wheel. This wheel of fortune might generously give you ten healthy children, or it might for no reason at all strike you and your family dead.
Tyche and Fortuna were names given to the feeling most humans have had: life sometimes seems terribly random, especially in a tragedy. Why did I get cancer, when my family doesn’t have a history of cancer? Why didn’t my loved one take a different road that fateful night? Why did my friend have to get the measles during her pregnancy?
In each case, what we are really saying is that the universe—especially in the face of tragedy—can feel random and fateful, without purpose, cruel and meaningless. But Christians know better, or at least we should. Tyche and Fortuna are false gods, and there is no such thing as luck.
That’s because the universe is full of purpose and meaning, and there is a God who rules over every single part of it. What else does faith mean, except that there is no such thing as luck?
“The universe is full of purpose and meaning, and there is a God who rules over every single part of it.”
From cover to cover, the scriptures affirm this fundamental doctrine. It’s in the opening words of Genesis, where the Spirit of God hovers over creation. And it’s in the final words of Revelation, where Jesus announces that he is soon coming to judge creation. Creation is not random, and it is not a matter of luck. Rather, just as God created the universe, so he also reigns over it. God is sovereign. He oversees every part of the world. He holds it together. He governs even the smallest processes. And God has a purpose for everything that happens in the world. Nothing is random, and nothing is without meaning. Instead, God is sovereign over all.
He stretches out the heavens like a tent.…He makes the clouds his chariot.…He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. He makes springs pour water into the ravines.…He waters the mountains from his upper chambers.…He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for people to cultivate—bringing forth food from the earth… (Psalm 104, NIV)
Everything that happens on earth happens under God’s sovereignty. Even the winds of a tornado.
Now I know the question that follows. If God is in control, why does he allow terrible things to happen?
“If God is in control, why does he allow terrible things to happen?”
The short answer is misused human freedom. God allows bad things to happen because we abused the gift of free will that he gave us, and creation is cursed as a result. Free will is a wonderful and terrible gift. But free will is only free if, when exercised, it has an effect. So the gift of free will allows us to soar to great moral and aesthetic heights, lifting up humanity. But free will also means that we can choose to hurt each other, trash the creation, and sin against God himself, progressively breaking down God’s good creation. And though we have all done good, we all have also further broken the world. And by mistreating the world, we have caused bad things to happen.
It’s not hard to imagine. When 8.3 billion people all use their free will badly, the whole world spins out of control. The noon breeze, designed by God to cool the day, now turns into a murderous tornado, catching people like me in its path. The multiplication of cells, necessary for life itself, now spirals out of control, creating deadly cancer. Those we love the most mistreat us, causing unimaginable pain. Because we have abused God’s gift of free will, we have made a wreck of creation. Creation is under a curse.
This is the meaning of the sin of Adam and Eve. When they rebelled against God, God was forced to curse the earth:
“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:17-19, NIV)
“Cursed is the ground because of you.”
Creation was made to be good, but now it is cursed because of sin. This is why it can often feel out of control. But just because it can feel out of control doesn’t mean that it actually is out of control. Not at all! For God in his sovereignty is still guiding creation in spite of its curse.
How is this possible? The theological answer to this question is found in the word providence. God works through creation’s curse—even through our misused free will—to guide creation and to redeem us to himself. In other words, in spite of the curse on creation caused by our sins, God still provides his children with everything we need. This is gospel! A sovereign God is constantly at work in creation, turning things toward our good, redeeming situations, and recreating the world.
This is the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. You’ll remember that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery out of their nasty jealousy. And in slavery in Egypt, Joseph was betrayed by the wife of his master. Joseph was imprisoned in an Egyptian jail—not a place anyone would want to be. If you had asked Joseph at any point during his ordeal, he could have said that evil had won and that God was no longer in charge. 
“God works through creation’s curse—even through our misused free will—to guide creation and to redeem us to himself.”
But that’s not the case. Later in his story we find out that God was providentially using Joseph’s terrible fate for God’s own purposes, in this case, for the good of Joseph and his family. Joseph eventually is lifted up to become second in all Egypt, which would have never happened had he not been sold as a slave. So in spite of his brothers’ vile abuse of free will, God used it for good. When his brothers stand before him in judgment, Joseph assures them:
“And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.…God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.” (Genesis 45:5, 7-8, NIV)
This is an astonishing text, for it reveals that even through the evil of Joseph’s brothers, God was at work. And he is at work in our misfortunes, too, for his purposes and always for our good. This is what’s taught in the well-known text of Romans 8:28:
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28, NIV)
“And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.”
This text makes a promise: not that everything that happens to us is good, but that God will use everything that happens—good, bad, and indifferent—for our good. God is working behind the scenes, weaving our futility for his good, molding our failures around his plans. After all, God is sovereign. So even when we cannot see it, God is working through all things to accomplish his will. For years, Joseph could have said that he was the victim of terrible luck, only to find out that God was working through his hardships to save a nation.
And the same is true with us. God is constantly at work behind the scenes of our lives—in the good times and in the bad. Because of God’s providence, all things work together for our good. Through the misfortunes of the world, God is working on blessings impossible to receive otherwise. In the hardships we face, God offers discipline. Through the slings and arrows of life, God teaches us the strength of perseverance.
God’s providence is at work in literally everything, whether we see it or not. God has not abandoned his creation, and he is not going to let the curse on creation remain. Rather, God is providentially working out a beautiful plan that actually uses our broken free will to accomplish his glorious plans. God is at work in all things. There is no such thing as luck.
“God is at work in all things.”
I recently went back to the spot on the trail where I was caught in the tornado seventeen years ago. Shortly after the tornado, the county placed a plaque at the spot to memorialize the deadly tornado. The plaque is now gone. My tree still stands, but the rest of the forest is quickly growing back as well. The day I revisited there was a beautiful day—people were strolling, laughing, and riding bikes, seemingly unaware of the cosmic battle I had fought there nearly two decades before.
I searched my heart for some feeling about the tornado, but there was none. It was as if it had never happened. I stared at my tree—almost bored. Those past struggles over feelings of bad and good luck were no longer present. Life has officially moved on.
The only thing that has stayed the same is unbounded providence of God.
[1] For those counting the number of times I have told my tornado story, congratulations on yet one more.
