Appreciation

Today will be a random post.... haha~ I'll like to share about something I read from a book call "Language of God" and certain questions in this book will help new believers like myself to understand God better. The first question will be.. "If our God is a loving God, why are there innocent people who suffers?". Probably you already knew the answer if you are strong in spiritual growth and that's really good! Okay so according to the above question, this is the story..

Story: (short cut version, this lady is the daughter of the author)
There is one a stormy night, a house was broken into by a man while the owner, an innocent and righteous young lady is doing her research onto chinese medication. This man who broke into the house, pointed a knife at the young lady and forced himself in her. (Why God didn't let the lightning strike on that man or talk to his conscience to prevent this tragedy?) Years later, thank God that this young lady was blessed with great recovery emotionally. And not only that she has grown closer to God, she also became counselor for many rape victims and saved their lives. God did used her! (end of story)

At this point, I thought that why God would use us in such a hard way? Please read on to the answer that I got. This is because God has given us free will and often we abuse it to sinful acts and impurity therefore create sufferings unto ourselves. In Genesis v3:17-19, God says to Adam, "Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, this ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of his grain." Therefore, we cannot blame God for our sufferings.

On the other hand, to think about it that if our lives have not been full of obstacles and troubles, our relationship with God might not be as close as now. It is through our hardship that we learn to appreciate God's love and what He has given us. Through this we strengthen our relationship with God.

To elaborate further, imagine our lives are wealthy, healthy, no pain, no sufferings and having all the good things in life, we may be thankful to God in the beginning but due to our sinful nature, we will soon become unappreciative to God. He knew our weakness therefore He has a better plan, greater than our own, which we may not comprehend and understand from it. I believe that God will not choose to harm us, He will always help us and lessen the harm.

Another simple and short story told by my brother, Jeremiah. :
There is this man, who had disaster fell on him. Thousands of rocks and stone came crashing on him so he started to pray to God. As he felt the pain due to the enormous of stone rapidly falling on him, he blamed God.. "God, God, why did you help me?" and suddenly he heard a voice from the upper land "Yes I did I did, please hang on for awhile, it may be a little painful!". As the man turn and looked, God is holding on all the big rocks while only the small stones slipped off and hit the man.

Dear Jesus, you are our loving God and you set the greatest example as being a holy person. For that all of us yearn and desire to be like you. So God, I wanna thank you for giving me all the loving, caring and knowledgeable brothers and sisters who never cease to guide all new believers including myself in knowing the bible and You better. This is the opportunity you gave us to grow and walking closer with you Lord. Lord, I want to thank you for every plans you have for us. Lord, I want to pray for my brothers and sisters and myself, to be humble before you and be patience for the answers come to clear our doubts. We shall not conclude harshly as we know that God you work in wonders and did it at a most suitable timing. Lord I pray for all brothers and sisters that we will all grow spiritually and walk closer to you in your plans for us. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen!