There are times when it seems difficult to understand why God allows excesses in some places and scarcities in others. We have droughts and we have floods. We have heat waves and “bone chilling cold.” Balance and moderation don’t seem to occur with any regularity.
In the last few years, I think I have finally reached a place where I have stopped asking God why things happen the way they do. Life is what it is! I could never really accept that God’s will causes unhappiness, struggle or pain. Today I believe (honestly) that God’s will for us is that we have freedom, joy, and happiness.
However, God has given us freedom of choice and He/She does not intervene in the natural order of things. We are free to be happy or sad, and even though we frequently don’t want to fully accept this fact
, we are free to choose. We often choose to be miserable. I suspect it is part of the human condition that we sometimes enjoy our own misery.
I will never understand God, and today I don’t believe I was meant to do so in this human life. I’d like to think I will understand better at a later time. When I look for help, though, I find it in many places along the journey. One I would recommend to everyone is a small book I read years ago for the first time and still read today. It is called “The Will of God” and it was written by Leslie D. Weatherhead.
In the book, the will of God is discussed in three separate parts. First there is the intentional will of God. Then comes the circumstantial will of God (God’s plan within certain circumstances) and lastly, God’s ultimate will. Looking at it this way has helped me enormously to put life, death, catastrophes, pain, and suffering into perspective.
We have all seen great good come out of terrible suffering. Today I choose to believe that God never causes suffering, but does not intervene unless called upon to do so, and then the inventions come in ways we may not expect. We can’t see what lies ahead of us in our journey through life, but God can. All we must do is believe He/She desires the best for us all.
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