Don't blame God

Ever hear someone say, "Why did God let this happen to me?" It is a natural question to ask whenever something bad happens in life - especially when someone doesn't realize or understand fully the love of God and the nature of his character. We react this way because we feel that we did not "deserve" this moment of disappointment, season of loss, or depth of difficulty that we are experiencing. Yet, "bad things" sometimes come into our life, not because God did anything to orchestrate them - they are a result of us living in a fallen world. It can be related to our own ignorant zeal - hasty decisions, careless answers, silly compromises - those things that get us into the "soup" we are in each and every time. People can sometimes ruin their own lives and God gets the blame for their silliness. Rather than asking why God allowed something to happen, we might do well to examine what was in our own heart that might have allowed or fostered this result! We may just find God isn't to blame - in fact, he was right there alongside us as we were dealing with it and he still is!

Ignorant zeal is worthless; haste makes waste. People ruin their lives by their own stupidity, so why does God always get blamed? Grow a wise heart—you'll do yourself a favor; keep a clear head—you'll find a good life. (Proverbs 19:2-3, 8)

A wise heart is both the result of taking advantage of learning from what God provides as direction for our lives and then determining what is beneficial in the pursuit we are about to undertake. We have a good many pursuits that are best left 'un-taken', but that we choose to take anyway. People with good sense restrain themselves. Restraint is one of the most difficult things for us to learn, though. Restraint is nothing more than having a system of "checks and balances" by which we "run through" a decision before taking any action. In the end, the results are usually better because they have been thought through with some level of 'sane' consciousness. Our thinking is often clouded by whatever is the most demanding thing in our life that day - it could be the needs around the house, the chaos at the office, or the inner turmoil of emotions that are constantly on edge. We need a "clear head" in order to process life correctly (with wisdom) and then to make the right decisions with what it is we know about the circumstances at hand.

It takes time to "clear your head" - haste does not give us the "time" we need for the decisions of the day. When we compromise the investment of time, we compromise the outcome of the decision. No wonder we find ourselves questioning how "God could let things happen" in our life - we somehow equate our foolishness with is lack of care. Indeed, we are just compounding our own foolishness when we choose this manner of thought! Just sayin!