The Lord is my shepherd
Psalm 23:1 to 6
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
I got to thinking the other day ... guess that explains all the grinding noise , smoke and sparks. What got me to that point was in hearing the question "Why does God make bad things happen?" Now I personally do not believe this but it did bring up the question of why do some people think this?
Our Father who's never ending love for his children would never desire nor want such anguish to befall them. It is true that the world of man does bring upon itself these troubles and sorrows but God does not play any part in it. For that is a impossibility.
Evil can not stand in his presence and exist. Just to make a point consider the following scenario; If God were to try to have thoughts of causing harm and misery to his children , the thought being in the presence of pure holy love and goodness , it would fail. Evil can not exist surrounded by good. it would cease to exist before even one atom of it could form. Therefore ending in a paradox. I guess it would be the one and only thing our Lord and creator could not create. Sin DOES not have made by God printed on the bottom of it , that is the sole proprietary of man.
The only connection I can see with our Lord making bad things happen is from the free will given to us by him and what we have done with it. Sometimes in the moment of grief people may let their thoughts slide towards this conclusion. In the form of the question “Why didn’t you heal and save (loved one)?”, or “Why did you let them die?!”.
Death is a fact of life that is a necessity. Why? Because there must come a time when we have to shed these old clothes , our bodies , and put on the new and better robes that our Lord will provide us with when we enter into his kingdom. I don’t know about anybody else but my clothes are getting pretty threadbare and I would welcome a pure white robe given to me from God. Got to admit his does give great presents.
Now time for a confession. I am guilty of the crime of letting a bible gather dust from nonuse. My excuse was that I was too busy and would get to it later. Well , in retrospect , I now see that was a bad idea. The Lord did not abandon me for I had ignored him and definitely paid a price for my arrogance and procrastination. My life in man’s world was more important to me and the laziness that I am very proficient in.
One might be thinking that I just mentioned committing sin. Let me check what is printed on the bottom ... Made By Dan. Why am I not surprised? For this act I have paid dearly. I am without gainful employment , for some time now , and I am 25 pounds underweight from barely having enough to eat day to day.
Should I resort to proclaiming to God about his failure to provide and his forsaken me and doing bad things? The answer would be a vigorously and swift NO! Dan did a bad thing and without help from anybody else , Thank you very much.
Now let us talk about turning the attention back towards God and the power of prayer. Yesterday September 3, 2009 the Lord forgave me of course , and brought a blessing my way. I now have money to buy food. Not just that I have the funds but it is exactly double the budget that I had when I was gainfully employed. Imagine that?
So , when bad things happen the most excellent course to choose is to get even closer to God for he is the solution and salvation.
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Our sovereign God
"Why does God make bad things happen?" Now I personally do not believe this but it did bring up the question of why do some people think this?
Dan, Is our God a sovereign God? Doesn't He control all events? When God first made mention of a Savior in Genesis when he told the serpent in the garden that "he will crush your head and you will strike his heel", was He only hoping that events would occur in such a way that Jesus would be crucified, or was He there making sure that Judas betrayed Jesus, and Pilate washed his hands?
Think of the plagues in Egypt, and how God "hardened" Pharoah's heart after each of the first six and then sending another. Think of the evil that came upon the Israelites which resulted from disobedience to God, as they journeyed through the wilderness. God promised calamity if the Jews were unfaithful, and delivered.
The Old Testament is an ongoing account of how God directed and moved history along to fulfill his purposes. He used the prophets to prophesy what was going to happen, then made it happen. Through his prophets, He told His people to repent, and promised that if they would, He would spare them from captivity in Babylon.
I think the Bible is pretty clear that God is controlling what is going on in this world... good and bad.
Does God make bad things happen? Job gives interesting insight into how He exercises complete control, at least, in he case of Job. In Job, God does not directly make bad things happen, but He set things up so bad things will happen. Recall God speaking to Satan, asking where He has been, and Satan saying,"Roaming the Earth..." Then God says, "Have you considered my servant Job?" The conversation ensues with the result of God giving Satan permission to inflict incredible suffering and pain on Job, including the death of all his children. This, to prove to Satan, that Job would still remain faithful to God, in spite of losing the many blessings God had given him.
The account is written in such a way that God calls Satan's attention to one of his most astute followers so that Satan, in his jealousy of God, could not help but put Job through all this misery.
In one sense, you are right... God did not "do" all these bad things to Job. However, in another sense, God invited it, allowed it, and dictated the parameters. I think that the invitation shows that God purposed it.
I am not trying to paint God as evil in any way at all. I just think that we honor God by recognizing His omnipotence, his sovereignty, and power over absolutely everything, and we do a disservice to Him by saying that He does not have a handle on all things, and evil can somehow happen outside of God's control.
By the way Dan, I am glad to hear of the blessings God has granted you, and keep on the good path, my friend!
Reply to Our sovereign God
Thank you,Ken for your reply. I always welcome input on my blogs. Your point was well made. I guess what I was trying to do was to show how some people misunderstand their relationship with God. Especially when they are under duress of a stressfull situation and think that they have somehow been abandoned by God.
Of course this is not true for he will never abandon us.
In the example of the Egyptians I see it as our Lord freeing his children from slavery and showing the Pharoah that his gods were false and powerless to sheild him from the one and true God. The objective being good for setting them free from the bondage of being slaves and maybe at least showing one Egyptian the light of the Lord. And with Job yes he did control the events leading to satan trying his best to drive Job away from God's embrace. But satan was the director of the bad that befell Job. Only our Father brought forth unto Job the good blessings many times over.
What point I am attempting to arrive at is that I do not see our Lord as a vindictive one but one who uses every tool at his disposal even those that we perceive as being of a bad nature to achieve good.
Example: parents let their children go trick or treating and later at home they take away most of their candy leaveing them only a small amount. The child may perceive this as not necessarily bad but as being mean not understanding why.
Only the parents with their wisdom know that they are doing this for the best interest and good for the child. For without doing this the child would end up getting sick from eating too much of it. I know this is a weak and shallow example but trying to compare anything to the infinite wisdom of our Father can only end up as such.
In wrapping this up I know the Lord has created all and controls all with no exception, I am just saying that I believe he does not use bad with malice but with the end result of it for being good.
Again thank you for your input Ken
Reply to Our sovereign God
Dan and Ken i would like to say i really enjoyed this discussion.Sharing the path of light will indeed strengthen our beam of hope.Hope has become the reason of my existence,yes we are all humans and yes there is so much that we dont realy know and understand, I would like to share with you the world that i now see ever since i have acknowledged the presence of light in my life.
I have used the term "acknowledged" because the truth i live matures with time.on many occasions the lord has brought me back to his house,my reality has began to change, it has developed a need for purpose,i need for truth and that which is the true purpose of being, i know we all feel this sometimes,we ask our self questions of why? and many other question but questions have never brought back the life of a loved one,it has never brought food to the table,i believe we were created with the act of love,kindness and mighty compassion, that the free wheel given to us was and is beyond doubt the gift of all gifts that man kind could have been given.we are here today living through all kinds of emotions that life can bring.I'm perplexed by this amazing truth which confirms that anything in this world is possible,But with God the possibilities goes even beyond the thought of man.
"Our Father Has a plan for us just like any parent has for their children" we just need to put our trust in Him.
Thanks Guys You have inspired me!!!!