God's Purpose

Bad things happen to good people.  And to bad people, too.  While I am not ready to say that God sends bad things to us, it has always seemed that He allows bad things, the things we would never really choose, to come to us.  The woes of Job were not sent by God.  He allowed them, but did not send them.  There is a difference.  Of course, this takes us to still another question.  If God allows bad things to come to us, does He have a purpose in doing so?  Our faith shouts "Yes!"  

Our faith does not allow for a random unfolding of life.  The creation is about order, not chaos.  Surely, such is true of our life as well.   Perhaps, the question about God allowing bad things to come for a purpose is too great a matter for a blog post of three paragraphs.  Maybe it could even be said it is too big a matter for finite thinkers like us. We can wrap our minds around some things, but so many of the questions of faith are more about learning to live with and within mystery without understandng the mystery. 

The Old Testament screams that God has a plan, a future for us, one that ends with what is good for us.  (Jeremiah 29:11)  Our experience tells us that it is a plan with a lot of bumps in the road.  There have even been those moments when we have lost traction and slid off an unseen dangerous edge.  God saw the bumps.  He knew they were ahead; yet, He allowed us to find them for ourselves.  Is there some purpose in those unexpected and unwanted moments?  There must be. Our faith can offer no other answer and really be faith.  It is a part of that mystery we cannot yet fully see.