Friends and neighbors
As I am sure you know, there are many people going through many challenges right now. And you know what, there will always be challenges while we are here on this earth. I know that I have been going through some challenges for some time now. One thing I know for sure is that as I go through these challenges I have been forced to rely on God more, to build my faith, and to learn and grow in my understanding of God’s way of doing things. Now some take this and run with it saying that God does or “allows” these challenges in our lives in order to teach us lessons and draw us closer to Him. Well you have to be very careful with that line of thinking. This line of thinking sometimes can get into basically putting off all responsibility of consequences on God. And if anything bad happens: “Well, God has a purpose for it.”
As I am sure you have heard me say many times before, I dont believe God makes bad things happen. ANd yes He does allow things to happen. But no, He does not sit up on His throne looking down at us, seeing a “bad thing” coming our way and makes His choice that “I am going to allow this even though I could stop it, so that it will cause them to come closer to me. Hopefully.” There are a lot of bad things that happen to people and they dont choose to run closer to God. God is not the author of confusion and He does not have to use bad things to teach people. We live in a world of rough situations and we make our own choices which sometimes can be the wrong choices.
And yes of course God does use challenges in our lives to bring us closer to Him and to build our Faith, but I do not believe for a second that is His best for us. Just like you may have heard me refer to my relationship with my boys and how I operate as a father to them. I would much rather them make the right choices and reap the rewards accordingly. Sometimes though I know that even though they know better they are going to choose wrongly and or challenges will come just by them being a part of this world. When the challenges come either way, as their father I will use the situation to teach them and grow them as they choose to listen and learn. But again, it is not my perfect will for them to have to learn through mistakes. Most of us do have to learn that way though sometimes.
I am saying all this to just let you know that I too face some challenges, especially the last year and half. I am still fighting some of those challenges and still expecting a “good” end to it all. and I know that I do choose to grow in my Faith and relationship with Him right in the middle of all this. You too may be facing challenges but make sure and dont fall into the trap that many do saying that God caused or allowed this to happen so He can teach you a lesson. And at the same time if you are caught up in some challenging times, remember, yes He can use it as a tool to grow you up if you choose to allow Him.
YOUR HEALTH, YOUR LIFE, YOUR CHOICE Godbless u kj