The Consequences of a Bad Choice (Does God Cause Bad Things to Happen?)

Does God cause bad things to happen to us?  This week, I've had multiple conversations with people about dealing with consequences.  They asked why God caused bad things to happen to us, so I would like to address this question head on.  This morning illustrated God's grace perfectly.  As I was leaving for church, I narrowly missed walking into a really big spider web stretched between my car and my husband's truck.  There was a very hairy spider sitting right in the middle of this web.  Thankfully, I missed walking into the web, or I would have alerted the whole neighborhood of meeting the itsy, bitsy spider.  I mentioned to my daughter that I would have to destroy the spider's web in order to leave, and she said a very wise statement.  "The spider chose to build his web in a dangerous place."  I very gently reversed my car so that the spider web fell toward my husband's truck.  The web was completely destroyed, but the spider lived to rebuild his web in a safer place.  We are created as amazing beings.  We were not made to be robots, but were given the freedom of choice.  This freedom of choice comes with the reminder that every choice has a consequence whether good or bad.  I can choose to study for a test and have the consequence of doing well on it, or I can choose to blow off studying only to fail the test.  I can choose to grab my son's skateboard and work on my skateboarding down a steep hill.  This would probably have a consequence of me braking my leg.  The results are based on my choices.  Instead of seeing God as a furious Father in Heaven that is throwing lightening bolts at his disobedient children, we have to change the way we see God by taking responsibility for our own actions.  We are the spider choosing to build our webs in dangerous places.  When consequences catch up and we face danger, our caring Father may allow our work to be destroyed because He cares the most about saving our lives.  That way in the future, you can rebuild stronger.  This happened to Jonah.  He was swallowed by a whale, but would he have been swallowed if he hadn't made a choice not to listen to God and get on the boat in the first place?  He faced the consequence of his bad choice, but God spared his life so that he could get in a right place with God and have a future.  If you look at this life as all there is, then God could be seen as hard at times.  But this life on earth is not it!  There is an eternal life.  God's desire is not that you live in pleasure forever here on a temporal place.  He wants you to be complete, not just for a little while, but for eternity!  So He is going to do what He needs to do to secure that eternal joy for you.  We live in an evil world where we face the consequences of our actions, but our loving Father is with us during the hardships (not causing the hardships) turning them into something good for our future!

Jeremiah 29:11  For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (ESV)

Have a great week high-heeled warriors!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Is Love? Loving When It's Hard.

Image
  I want to start by saying this has been one of the most straining weeks my husband and I have experienced in a while. As many know, my husband's father nearly passed away this week. He has been sick for a few weeks. My husband had a feeling, prompted by the Holy Spirit, that he needed to get his dad to the hospital on Sunday evening. His dad had a doctor's appointment for Tuesday, but he felt like it needed to be right away. He was admitted into the hospital, and by Wednesday, his dad had sepsis. The doctors gave his dad eight hours to live. We watched his pulse and blood pressure plummet and waited for the inevitable. Meanwhile, we prayed that God would move. A miracle occurred, and he began to improve. He has been taken off the ventilator and is breathing on his own with a steady blood pressure. During all of this, my husband and I celebrated our 27th anniversary. Neither of us had hardly any sleep the first 24 hours. My husband only had 3 hours of sleep for 72 hours, so
Read more

Update: My Daughter's Latest EEG Six Years This Week After Brain Surgery

Image
  A couple of weeks ago, I went with my daughter to her yearly neurologist appointment. They have slowly been lowering her seizure medication. It's easy to worry after all that we've been through, but as we visited the bathroom in the waiting room, we had a little reminder to trust God. There on the paper towel dispenser was a little Jesus. It reminded us He's always with us, even in hard times. The neurologist wanted to do a new EEG. The last one was a couple of years ago and was inconclusive. We scheduled the new EEG for last week. After prayer and remembering Jesus is with us, we went. She received the results the next day. No seizure or abnormal activity! Every year that passes is good news. We are so thankful that God is faithful, and Jesus is always with us! Have a great week high-heeled warriors!
Read more

Ready to Die?

Image
  We celebrated the home coming of one of the longest-attending members of our church. I've been to funerals that were extremely sad, and I've found that I'm an empathetic cryer. I attended a funeral with a friend. I didn't know the deceased, but as we walked by the casket at the end of the funeral, I messy cried. As I heard and saw the family crying, I couldn't help it. I've been asked to sing in a lot of funerals. This empathetic crying has made it difficult to sing. A few years ago, I mentioned to a couple of friends about my messy crying and worried about losing my composure during the song. The husband had shoulder surgery the day before and was on some really strong pain killers. As I sat behind the piano and looked out at the crowd, he smiled extremely big in his painkiller-induced state and gave me a very visible thumbs up sign. At that point, I struggled not to laugh. Crying was forgotten. I say all of this because this weekend, I was preparing for cry
Read more