Somewhere in the plot of many adventures, there comes a moment in which the hero faces daunting odds. From their hiding place, the hero and his sidekick watch the bad guys plot some terrible evil. They know they have to do something, but what? The sidekick turns to the hero and whispers, “You have a plan, right?” Well, yes, as a matter of fact, he does. Sort of. The plan is wacky and improbable. But it works, and they save the day yet once again.

Not everyone, of course, is a “planner”; some of us prefer to take things as they come. But even those who like to “go with the flow” can appreciate it when the people in charge have a plan, especially when there’s trouble.

And that especially applies when God seems to be the only one in charge.

When bad things happen, we need to make sense of them in some way, and it can be a struggle. We see this repeatedly in the Psalms. Didn’t God promise that the righteous would prosper in everything they do? the psalmists sometimes wonder. I’ve tried to follow God’s way. Then why am I suffering so? And why do the wicked, who mock God with their very lives, seem to get away with it? Why do they come out on top? How long is this going to go on?

We’re not strangers to such questions. And the quick and easy answer to that whole line of questioning, the pat response to which we often default, is “God has a plan” or its more generic cousin, “Everything happens for a reason.” A whole slew of Bible verses can be trotted out to support the idea. One of most common is Jeremiah 29:11:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (NIV)

I’ve written about this verse many times, because it has too often been misused and abused, ripped out of context. It is written to God’s people who are suffering the pain and humiliation of being exiled from the Promised Land to Babylon. And God does indeed promise that the people will leave Babylon and return to the land.

But not for decades yet, God tells them, which for most means not in their lifetimes.

Meanwhile, God also tells them to settle down and work for the welfare of Babylon. Excuse me? Seek the peace and prosperity of our oppressor? Yes, God says, because it’s in their prosperity that you’ll find your own.

So to be clear: yes, I think God has a plan. And yes, I believe everything happens for a reason.

But that’s no guarantee that we’ll like the plan or enjoy the reasons.

God’s plan for us in the present, obviously, is not that we would live without having to suffer so much as a stubbed toe. Most believers understand this, even when they plead for some particular ordeal to end. It’s not that we expect a life with no suffering. It’s that we struggle with what seems to be meaningless suffering, pain that seems to have no reason and serve no purpose. And when we voice that confusion to each other, people sometimes get a little nervous.

Churchspeak is like a coded language that believers use amongst themselves. Often, biblical language and ideas are used to convey messages that, at root, aren’t really biblical. It’s not wrong to believe that God has a plan. Biblically, that plan is for us to become more and more like Jesus. That plan is redemption. That plan is resurrection, and all things made new in the glorious presence of God.

But that guarantees nothing about what we suffer in this life.

Does everything happen for a reason? Of course, and unless you believe that life is completely random (and nobody actually lives that way), everything happens for multiple reasons. Bad things happen because we are sinful beings living in a broken world. Sin isn’t just intentional malice: it’s stupidity, willful ignorance, shortsightedness… the list goes on ad nauseam.

But in the language of churchspeak, “God has a plan” or “Everything happens for a reason” is often code for “Quit complaining. Everything is going to be fine. You just have to have faith. The Bible says so.” We ignore how, for Jesus, the path of resurrection led through the cross. We forget that the author of Hebrews tells us that the whole Hall of Fame of faithful, godly people died without receiving what God had promised (11:13, 39).

Does that mean that God’s plan failed? No, quite the contrary:

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. (Heb 11:39-40)

The Bible takes the long view; it tells a vast story that runs from Genesis to Revelation, from creation all the way to its ultimate redemption and glory. Our lives are but chapters — brief episodes, really — in that tale. That doesn’t make them unimportant; it is pure love and grace that God is mindful of our welfare. But God’s plan is first and foremost about God’s story, not ours.

The biblical writers seem to think that’s where we’ll find meaning in our suffering: we’re part of something grander than we can imagine, that continues on well after we die. By grace, we get glimpses of future glory now, especially as we seek to live in newness under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit. But the full knowledge of why things happen as they do, why we have to suffer the indignities of life in a broken world, is for later.

At least that’s the plan.