“Some people create their own storms, then get upset when it rains.” anonymous
Have you ever met a wimp? I have. As soon as life gets tough, they don’t; instead of being a problem-solver, they point fingers.
Someone/thing is responsible for life not offering them the all-you-can-eat-dessert-buffet they deserve. Some even blame God for not being their personal caterer, wondering why He wimps out instead of ordering up whatever it is they want.
Well, God is not a wimp. We are, but He isn’t. Still, too often He gets a bad rap.
You know what I’m talking about. Things start to go south, and we despair for someone (other than ourselves) to be culpable. Who better than the only One—the miracle-maker—who could really
make a difference…BUT DOESN’T? After all, how can an all-loving God stand by as tragedies unfold?
We all have stories. Listen well to others, and you will hear them. My friend’s 10-year- old granddaughter died. After decades serving God, my prayer partner had to place his adult daughter in rehab. A Christian woman, spending hundreds of hours on her knees, has not seen God change her overbearing son-in-law. A second marriage is dissolving, in spite of Christian therapy and mental illness. A young woman prays to marry and start a family, but the years go by and she doesn’t meet the right one.
Some people believe that if we just lived up to our Christian label, if we really, truly lived a life devoted to God, bad things wouldn’t happen. (The disciples would have a lot to say about
that.) Others have an outlook I question.
Look at what Chintan Jain wrote: “If you still want to blame God for all the problems in your life, then you can but with a simple condition:
…only if you dedicate all your hard work to him.
…only if you have celebrated all of your happiness with him.
…only if you have the ability (or) skill to accept that you have failed.”
I understand what Jain is trying to say, but I disagree. There never is a time we can blame the One who loves us in spite of ourselves, who lavishes us with blessings when we don’t deserve them.
I am not guiltless when it comes to blaming God. Embarrassing to admit, but that’s how I reacted when our baby died and again when my brother died.
Other people saw miracles; why couldn’t I? I failed to understand that God would never be the source of my problems. Never. His goal is always that we grow in our faith and that we lean on Him.
Satan is the one who seeks for us to accuse God of being unloving.
“No one undergoing a trial should say, ‘I am being tempted by God.’ For God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone” (James 1:13).
Good things can come from life’s disappointments. I became a Christian following my baby’s death, and I became a better teacher after so many students described why my brother was their favorite teacher. Amazing, isn’t it? When we get something good that we don’t deserve, we celebrate, but when it’s bad, we blame God.
As one author put it, “God is the author of a lot of things, but He is not the author of our pain.”
We wimps need to remember that.