This is where God wants you (to be) ...

This has been on my mind for some time, and I must confess it might ruffle a few feathers.

I recently received a well-meaning e-mail telling me, in effect, that my current situation is where God wants me to be. My response was that I don't believe we always end up where God wants us to be, but rather where our decisions, or the decisions of others, for better or worse, have placed us.

That is not to say that I am a deist, and believe that God wound up the universe and will now let it wind down then tip over. Nor do I believe God will, or will not, directly intervene in events. He has, He can, and I am sure He will. What it means is that I believe sometimes "it happens" and God allows it. Let me explain:

Did God want Adam and Eve to sin?
Did He want Joseph tossed into a pit?
Did He want David to seduce Bathsheba, then plot to have her husband killed?
Did He want Paul to kill Christians?

I don't believe He wanted these events to happen any more than I believe He wanted my grandmother, uncle and a cousin to die from cancer. If those events are what He wanted, that doesn't sound much like a loving, caring, God. Does it?

I do believe though that He can take even the most horrendous event and cause it to work for the ultimate purposes of His plan. I know that's a tough nut to crack, a thought perhaps difficult to reconcile in the confines of our limited human intellect and vision.

I think probably the only horrendous event in human history He wanted to happen was for Christ to offer Himself; it was the only way out of the mess we humans created.

Choosing suffering versus choosing God's will even if it means suffering

Another reference from Oswald Chambers great My Utmost For His Highest.

http://www.myutmost.org/08/0810.html

My wife and I discussed that very topic after I kept "going back" to that day's devotional. The challenge is to know whether we have chosen the suffering: a bad job, poor relationship, etc. , or if "it" is God's will for our lives.

I confess that I do not know whether or not my "suffering" (such as it is) is indeed God's deliberate will for my life or is it the consequences of my actions, or the actions of others? Perhaps I may never know until a day when I will not even care.