September 2026

Why Negative Things Happen?

Dear Brothers and Sisters

Looking Back

In last month’s newsletter, I reflected on the importance of natural, social, and spiritual laws.

This Month’s Focus

This month, I will draw from sacred scripture to explore how limited understanding and social conditioning can distort our view of why things happen—and how that misunderstanding can lead to suffering.

The Imam Who Lost His Faith

There once lived an imam who had devoted his life to God.

For many years he served as the spiritual leader of a small village. He prayed with his people, counseled them in their troubles, comforted them in grief, and taught them to place their trust in God.

But as the years passed, something began to trouble his heart.

He had witnessed good people suffer. He had watched innocent children become sick. He had seen honest families lose everything they possessed, while people who seemed cruel sometimes prospered.

Slowly, a question took root within him:

“If God is loving and merciful, why does He allow these things to happen?”

The imam prayed for an answer, but none seemed to come.

Eventually his doubts became so strong that he felt he could no longer stand before his congregation and preach a faith that he himself was beginning to question.

So he left his village.

He decided to cross the desert and return to the town where he had been born. Perhaps there, away from his responsibilities, he could decide what he truly believed.

The Young Family

After traveling for some time, the imam came upon a young husband and wife with their small child.

They were stranded in the desert.

Their camel had suddenly become sick and could no longer carry them. The family had been traveling toward a nearby village where they hoped to find food, water and shelter.

The father desperately tried to get the camel back onto its feet, but the animal would not rise.

The mother held her little child beneath the burning sun. The imam looked at them and became angry. He raised his eyes toward heaven.

“Why, God?” he cried.

“These are good people. They have a little child with them. They need shelter and safety. Why would You allow their camel to become sick when they are so close to the village?”

There was no answer. The imam continued across the desert.

The Merchants

Later he encountered a caravan of merchants.

They too were in despair. A fire had broken out and destroyed the merchandise they had carried across the desert. Goods representing months—perhaps years—of work had been reduced to ashes.

Men stood staring at the remains of everything they owned. Their wives and children wept beside them.

Again the imam looked toward heaven.

“Why, God?”

“These people worked for what they had. Their families depended upon these goods. Why would You allow everything they possess to be destroyed?”

Again there was no answer. And the imam’s doubts grew deeper.

The Old King

Near the end of his journey, the imam came upon an old man walking slowly through the desert.

In his arms he carried the body of a young boy. The child was his grandson.

The old man was the ruler of a small kingdom, and the boy had been his only heir. When the old king died, this child was supposed to inherit the throne.

But now the boy was dead.

The imam watched the old man carrying his grandson and felt his remaining faith collapse.

He cried toward heaven:

“Why, God? Why?”

“This old man has lost his grandson. His only heir. This child had his entire life before him. What possible purpose could there be in the death of a child?”

The imam could understand no more.

“If this is Your justice,” he said, “then perhaps I have spent my life believing in something I never understood.” And he continued walking.

Has your faith been tested as well? Read on in part two of the newsletter.

Only Love

Michael

The Angel

“We see only this moment. God sees the whole journey.”

Then, as the imam crossed the desert, an angel appeared before him.

The imam was frightened.

But the angel said:

“You have asked God three times, ‘Why?’ You have judged what you have seen, but you have seen only a small part of each story.

“Now you will be given the answers.”

The angel spoke first of the young family.

“You were angry because their camel became sick and prevented them from reaching the village.

But what you did not know was that a terrible disease had broken out in that village. Had the camel remained healthy, the family would have entered the village. Their young child would have contracted the disease and died.

What appeared to you to be misfortune was the very thing that saved the child’s life.”

The imam was silent.

Then the angel spoke of the merchants.

“You saw their merchandise destroyed by fire and believed that God had abandoned them.

“But thieves were waiting farther along their route. Had the merchants arrived carrying their valuable goods, the thieves would have attacked them. Their merchandise would have been stolen, and their wives and children would have been taken away into slavery.

When the thieves learned that the merchants possessed nothing worth stealing, they left them alone.

“The merchants lost their possessions—but they kept something far more precious: their lives and their families.”

The imam lowered his head.

Finally, the angel spoke of the old king and his grandson.

“You saw a grandfather carrying a dead child and believed that nothing could justify such sorrow. But you saw the child only as he was.

God knew the man he would become.

The boy possessed a hardness and cruelty within him that would have grown stronger with age. Had he inherited his grandfather’s throne, he would have become a merciless ruler. Many innocent people would have suffered under him.

You saw the loss of one young life.God saw all the lives that would follow.”

The imam stood silently before the angel.

Then the angel said:

“You asked God why He permitted these things because you believed you understood what was good and what was bad.

But you saw only the moment.

God saw the whole journey.”

And suddenly the imam understood.

The sick camel had looked like a curse.

The fire had looked like a disaster.

The death of the young heir had looked like meaningless tragedy.



Yet behind each event existed consequences the imam could never have known.

His mistake had not been asking questions. His mistake had been believing that because he could not see a reason, there could be no reason.

The imam fell to his knees.

For the first time in many years, he prayed without demanding an answer.

When he rose, he turned around.

Instead of continuing toward his hometown, he began the long journey back across the desert toward the village he had left behind. He returned to his people, but he was no longer quite the same religious teacher.

Before, he had taught them that faith meant believing that nothing bad would happen.

Now he taught them something deeper:

Faith does not mean that we will always understand what happens to us.

Faith means trusting that our vision is limited, while God’s vision is not.

And whenever someone in his village suffered a loss and asked him,

“Why would God allow this?”

The imam no longer pretended to know the answer. Instead, he would remember the desert and say:

“We see only this moment. God sees the whole journey.”

Faith Beyond Limited Understanding

In other words, we often see life through the limits of our own intelligence and understanding. Faith helps us rise above the suffering that can come from those limits. Even when we do not understand “why,” faith reminds us that more may be unfolding than we can see or comprehend in the moment

Only Love,

Michael John

All of the above might sound daunting, but that's just the mind unable to understand the unlimited possibilities of Divinity. The value of Spiritually in the world today is needed, which is Love Itself, Being One Spirit, and Unity Consciousness. This results in Peace. Could you make time to be The Peace you want to see in the world?

You can start by joining the weekly retreats, which last only one hour. See below for more information.

Please join the StillPoint community (see below) for our weekly retreat. Until then, be the peace you want to see in the world.

Only Love

Michael John

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