Why sometimes do things just seem to go wrong? Does God really have a plan for me? If so, why do things go wrong so often?
We have all seen books, tapes, seminars etc on God’s Plan for My Life. I simply do not have time to read the stuff on the market, but I must admit that I wondered what effect all this material would have on someone who had been born into poverty, or had just found out they lost a loved one, or have become unemployed, a child was arrested. I wonder what people might think in a moment like those and do they believe that God has a plan for them.
This appears to be a real dilemma. On the one hand Christianity teaches that God has a plan; on the other hand, life shows us that bad things happen to good people. The only way out of the complexity is to say that there is nothing irreconcilable with God having a plan and things going wrong from our perspective.
Does that mean God wants things to go wrong for us? Absolutely not, Jesus clearly reveals God to be against making us humans suffer. But this does not mean that such things will not happen. For it is part of God's plan that things happen that are not sent to us directly by God. He just allows them to take place.
Dish out the blame when problems pop up in your life, whom do you hold responsible? That depends. You can hold people responsible; you do not say that God has mistreated you. You say so and so has mistreated you. In fact, you cry out to God for help in dealing with the pain
Likewise, if a friend close to you is injured, you explain what has happened by saying, 'The ladder broke,' or 'the other driver was drunk”. You shrug off the fact that the accident took place, and you place the blame on what you believe caused it: faulty equipment, irresponsible behavior, or whatever.
You do not hold God responsible for what has happened; and of course you appeal to God for help. Initially, in emotional upheaval, you might blame God, but when you think it through, you understand that God is as aggrieved as you are.
Because God gave us charge over the world, things go wrong that would never have happened if man had never fallen. When God let us loose on earth He allowed free will to come into play. The risk is that things will not be done the way God would wish they would; or they will be done badly, or selfishly, or unkindly; or not at all. God took a risk by sharing control over things with us, by planning our lives in a way that allows our free will and determination; it has become a world with suffering and pain. But not to involve us would have been to make us like robots or puppets, rather than human beings who are free. To make choices, choices that include our turning to Him with love and admiration.
So when you come to the end of your rope and you wish that God had not shared the running of the world with you, rethink it, God did, in spite of the risks. Why? Because God wants your love, through your free will because that is the sign of true love, not a forced obligatory love.
We need to live up to our responsibilities, as children of the King, offer our praise to Him, even in tough times because He first loved us. So when bad things happen. That does not mean that God has no plan all and is out of control. What God does promise is to be with us, no matter what happens. And so we can never say, 'I shall not walk in the valley of darkness,' but we can always say, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:4 these words express the constant plan of God; That God will always, absolutely always, be with us
Tone
No comments:
Post a Comment