"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." — John 10:10

In 2018, my brother died in a car accident. I had performed his wedding just two years before. And much of his church's response to his death was to say that it was all part of God's plan.

But I stood at his funeral and said: "This was not God's will."

There's a peculiar theological habit some people have developed, and it needs to stop. When something terrible happens—a diagnosis, an accident, a death—some scramble to make sense of it by pinning it on God. "It's all part of God's plan," they say, as if that makes the senseless make sense. "God is teaching you something." "This will form your character." "It will all make sense in heaven."

But what if we're getting the characters confused?

Jesus draws a stark line in John 10:10. On one side: the thief, who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. On the other side: Jesus himself, who comes to give life—abundant, overflowing, more-than-you-can-imagine life. These aren't two workers on the same divine project. They're opposites. Adversaries.

Why keep attributing the thief's work to Jesus?

At my brother's funeral, I said: "God hates death. He opposes heartache. Through the Holy Spirit empowering His church, God is working to heal the world. God is not in the business of orchestrating car wrecks to make a point. Rather, today, God joins us in our heartache, carries us in our pain, and he works to redeem even the worst things that the world has to throw at us. God does not make bad things, but God can make bad things beautiful."

When cancer ravages a body, that's the thief. When a brother dies in a car accident, that's the thief. When systems of injustice grind people down, when violence erupts, when creation groans under the weight of its brokenness—that's the thief. Stealing, killing, destroying. It's right there in the job description.

Jesus, meanwhile, is doing something entirely different. He's giving life. Not just biological existence, but abundant life—life that flourishes, life that overflows, life as God always intended it.

Giving abundant life to everyone necessarily requires justice. Theologian Joash Thomas puts it brilliantly: "Justice is giving to each person the good things that God intended for them." If God intends abundant life for all people, then justice means ensuring everyone gets access to it. Which means—and we need to be honest about this—some people who have taken more than their share, who have hoarded resources or power or dignity that belong to others, will need to let go of those things.

That's not stealing. That's restoration. Reparation. That's what abundant life looks like when it's actually abundant for everyone, not just for some.

Some theologians and preachers have gotten confused. They've developed this "soul-forming" theodicy that tries to make evil pedagogical. God is giving you cancer to teach you patience. God took your loved one to draw you closer to Him. God is allowing this suffering to build your character. As if God were some cosmic drill sergeant, putting us through hell to make us stronger.

That's not the God Jesus reveals. Jesus doesn't show us a God who inflicts suffering for educational purposes. He shows us a God who heals, who feeds, who restores, who resurrects. When Jesus encounters sickness, he doesn't say, "This is my Father's will for your spiritual formation." He heals it. When he encounters death, he doesn't give a sermon about divine purpose. He weeps—and then he raises the dead.

The first letter of John makes this explicit: "The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). Jesus came to destroy the destructive works. Not to collaborate with them. Not to use them for higher purposes. To destroy them.

Jesus and the thief are not in cahoots.

Whether you believe in a literal devil or understand "the thief" as a metaphor for the forces of sin, death, and chaos in the world—that's not the point here. The point is the distinction itself. There are forces in this world that steal, kill, and destroy. And then there's Jesus, who gives life.

Don't confuse them.

I said to those gathered: "What has happened is terrible. It's awful. It's not the way things are supposed to be. Parents should not have to bury their children. Little girls should be able to grow up with their daddies. Brothers shouldn't have to perform their brother's wedding and funeral within three years. So please, as a pastor, as his brother, as a human being, you have my encouragement to curse at the heavens and scream at the skies. But please don't tell me or anyone else that this was part of God's plan. It wasn't. It's against everything that God is for, everything that God wants for anyone."

When tragedy strikes, you don't have to manufacture meaning by attributing it to God's secret plan. Some things are truly senseless. Evils are genuinely evil, not secretly good in disguise. The child who dies will not make sense in heaven. That death will still be a loss, still be a theft, still be part of the destruction that Jesus came to overcome.

What will make sense is resurrection. What will make sense is a world where life abundant is finally, fully realized. Where the thief is defeated and Jesus' life-giving work is complete.

Your job as a follower of Jesus? Align yourself with the life-giver, not the thief. When you see stealing, killing, and destroying happening—recognize it for what it is. Don't baptize it with theological language that makes God the author of evil.

And when you see life being given—when healing happens, when justice rolls down, when the hungry are fed and the oppressed are freed—recognize that too. That's Jesus' work.

Jesus is not the thief. And the thief is not Jesus.

Don't confuse them.