God and life’s events

Does God remove people from our lives? I have a friend who has recently began using this as a means to comfort others or to rationalize when a relationship ends by saying that God was protecting them, or He is going to bring someone better into their lives, or they learned what He needed them to from that person and it time for them to move on. While God could certainly remove someone if he chose, the only place in the Bible I can think of God removing someone was with Phillip and the eunuch, but that is not the context in which she is using it. She is using it more in the context of divorce, rifts in families, the ending of friendships or romantic relationships. I'm at a loss of what to say to her since she fully believes that it is God's will and doing, yet it seems to contradict the Bible.

Do people come in and out of our lives in various ways and through different circumstances? Is God ultimately in control of all events in our lives? Does God promise to work all things in life for our good? The answer to all those questions is “yes.”

There is a problem when people try to assign a specific motive of God to a particular event in life. If God has not revealed in his word why he has or has not done something, we cannot pretend to speak for him.

When it comes to the “why?” questions of life, I find it best to maintain the attitude expressed in Romans 11:33-36: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?’ For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”