Billy Crystal gave a blunt response when asked whether he still talks to God after losing his home of 46 years in the Pacific Palisades wildfires and grieving the death of longtime friend Rob Reiner.

“No, ’cause I don’t trust Him.”

“Too many bad things have happened,” the 78-year-old comedian says, describing the world as a frightening place and admitting his relationship with God has changed.

I found this sad. It’s impossible to read his words, marked by the agonizing grief of losing his home and his best friend Rob Reiner, without feeling a sense of heartbreak.

This guy has brought so much joy to the world yet looks out at the world and says, “Too many bad things have happened… I don’t trust Him.”

Suffering shatters. It scrambles our compass. It can feel isolating.

But while entirely understandable, it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of who God is and what faith asks of us.

Catholicism teaches us that grief is a holy and agonizing journey, but it is not the final word. Doubt and anger are stations along the path of faith, not the end of the road. While saying “I don’t trust Him” is a heartbreakingly honest reflection of a shattered heart, it is mistaken because it treats God as the author of the evil rather than the ultimate refuge from it.

God’s seeming silence is not absence. The invitation is to bring that very anger and broken trust back to Him.

When we say we “trust” God because life is stable, comfortable, and safe, we are often operating under a transactional contract: “I will live a good life, and You will protect me from devastation.” But that’s not the world. Ask the apostles. Life didn’t get easier after Jesus resurrected.

Faith is not an insurance policy against suffering. Jesus promised us tribulation. God does not guarantee immunity from the fallenness of a broken world. He actually guarantees His presence within it. To stop trusting God because bad things happen is to expect the Almighty to act as a cosmic bodyguard rather than a Redeemer who enters into our suffering.

Catholics should not look away from the horror but stare directly at a crucifix.

When Billy Crystal looks at a frightening world and feels abandoned, Christianity offers a radical counter-truth. God is not a spectator to our grief. Christ suffered for us. He experienced betrayal, grief at the death of friends, unjust execution, and agonizing physical pain.

When we accuse God of absence or untrustworthiness in our darkest hour, Christ invites us to remember that Jesus cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God can handle our anger, our doubt, and our bluntness. But to turn away from God because of tragedy is to walk away from the only One who actually shares our sorrow.

Say a prayer for Billy Crystal. And all those who suffer. That it may turn them to Christ.