Question: I am trying to learn how to be ok with GODS decisions for my life and not be angry with them….good, bad, and ugly…. how can I better understand why things happen?
Answered by: Jedaiah Kramer, who has been a volunteer with us since July, 2014.
Answer:
The Short:
Here are a few key facts that should help you to be ok with God’s decisions. God created you for a purpose (Ephesians 2:10). God loves you (Romans 8:38-39). God allows you to choose whether to follow his plan or your own (Joshua 24:15). His plan may not always produce the most immediate gratification or be the easiest path (John 16:33). But, God’s plan will always produce greater intimacy with him, a meaningful life, depth of character, and lasting joy (Job 42:1-5, 10). Frustration and anger are often the result of judging God’s plan based on worldly standards, or assuming that truly negative experiences were caused by God (Job 2:6-10).
The Long:
“Why do things happen?” is a really big question. Some reject God entirely and attempt to explain all events through natural laws. Some believe that everything that happens to them or around them is directly caused by God or Satan. The truth is clearly somewhere in the middle. I’ll address various reasons why things happen. I will also provide a Biblical perspective on how we should respond to the things that do happen; the good, the bad, and the ugly.
God is the only person or thing that is uncreated. He created everything and everyone. God created the universe to operate with certain natural laws. If I trip and fall, God didn’t cause me to fall. He just made gravity, and my absentmindedness led to an unfavorable result. After creating everything that was purely natural, he created mankind in his image. While we have a body, he also gave each of us a spirit that will live forever. Just as there are natural laws, there are spiritual laws with consequences. Our choices produce both physical and spiritual results; sometimes positive, sometimes negative. God does not cause all things to happen. Things happen because of natural laws, spiritual laws, Satan’s intervention, God’s intervention, and the many interactions we have with one another.
It is easy to become angry at our lack of control in all of this. While we often can’t control what happens to us, we can control how we respond. Our response will be shaped by what we truly believe at our core. Our core set of beliefs about the world is often called our worldview. Everyone has a worldview whether or not they know it. Here is a good article on a Christian worldview.
http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-worldview.html
Within God’s plan for our lives in this world, there will be trouble. Look at Jesus himself, falsely accused, mocked, beaten, and wrongfully sentenced to death. Jesus’ disciples didn’t initially understand the cross, the power of salvation. Despite how awful a circumstance may be in the moment, God will use it for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes (Romans 8:28). The apostle Paul lived a life of victory from God’s perspective, but a life of tragedy from a humanistic perspective. God’s ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).
Learn to trust (Proverbs 3:5-6). Look at what God has done for those who love him. Look back on what God has done for you (Psalm 100:1-5). Do not be anxious about anything but with thanksgiving by prayer and petition make your requests to God. The peace of God will fill your mind and heart (Philippians 4:6-7).
There are a few key ideas that our current culture promotes that are at odds with God’s perspective. And, these opposing ideas are often the source of our frustration or anger: Temporal vs Eternal, Ownership vs Stewardship, Happiness vs Joy, Me vs God, Me vs Others. Gaining a Biblical perspective on each of these topics may help produce greater peace. The links below explain each of the above conflicts.
http://www.gotquestions.org/eternal-value.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/biblical-stewardship.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/joy-happiness.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/love-is-not-self-seeking.html
Question: What does the bible say about midlife crisis? Thank you so much in advance for your answer. God bless your ministry!
Answered by: Gary Meredith, who has been a volunteer with us since July, 2013.
Answer:
This writer can’t find any solid evidence in the Bible for the reality of a midlife crisis. Rather, our sinful desires are more of a lifelong continuum—we just invent new names and excuses for them along the way. However, the Bible does seem to suggest that some temptations are associated with different ages and stages in life.
Youth crisis – David prayed that God forget “the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways” (Psalm 25:7). Paul warned the very godly but young pastor Timothy to “flee the evil desires of youth” (2 Timothy 2:22). Much advice is given from older to younger people in the Bible (Exodus 18:17-24; Psalm 37:25; Proverbs 1:8; Ephesians 6:1-3).
Old age crisis – Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived (1 Kings 3:12; 4:29-34). Yet as he amassed wisdom and wealth he also amassed 1,000 wives and concubines (1 Kings 11:3), who led him astray in his old age to worship false gods (11:4). For all his wisdom, Solomon ended up as the perfect example of the saying, “There’s no fool like an old fool.”
Midlife crisis – The best example and lesson about a midlife crisis is David with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12). After years of hard work and battle, David had “paid his dues.” So he started taking life easier, enjoying palace life while sending his troops out to do the fighting without him. He gave himself time to be idle and peep at his neighbor’s beautiful wife as she bathed, all leading to disaster. In Luke 16:15-21, Jesus spoke of that stage in life where a man has achieved a certain level of success and tells himself, “Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” God’s response is, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.”
Very long lives of fallen humans tends to increase evil greatly. Before the flood, when people could live nearly a thousand years, “every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5). By shortening our lives to under 120 years, God blessed us to make better, wiser choices with our brief time on earth. We always sense our impending deaths, our brief lifespans during which we need to focus on doing good for our loved ones, then give an account to our Maker and Judge for how we spent the brief time He gave us.
In the meantime our sin nature will be pestering us, inventing all kinds of clever lies and tricks to make us indulge what it wants instead of what God has planned for us. As God told Cain, “… sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7). Paul describes sin’s deviousness in his own experience this way: “I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting” (Romans 7:7-8) He then gives the Bible’s most clear and complete description of what he and all Christians, of all ages, battle throughout our entire lives:
“We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:14-25)
The result and goal of that deliverance was described this way by James: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:2-5).
That’s great counsel for every stage of life!
