Advice in Hind Sight

Just a few days ago a friend on Facebook asked about all the 'garbage' that happens in the world today. We are to rest and trust in the sovereignty of God, but our humanity gets confused when tragedy comes. I replied to him with the following thoughts:

I think it's just all a part of a bigger picture that we don't yet understand. We were given a gift..to live..and an even greater gift ..to live abundantly..in freedom. But how we choose to live out that freedom is the real journey. Just as superheroes don't stop all their villains, we won't either. Life happens. Crime happens. But the Light shines best in the darkness and after going through the kind of sophisticated persecution last year I saw amazing things happening in my life. It was incredibly painful, but I saw Christ in ways I didn't expect. I think it's totally normal to get frustrated with it all though and I don't think He minds us kicking a fit about the pain in this world, but I trust that when He reveals everything to us in His timing we will be so in awe that we won't mind it at that point.

When I first began to truly believe I asked my husband this... "When we get to heaven, will we find out what really happened to Marilyn Monroe?" his reply, "When we get there do you think you'll care?" nope! I'll just be happy to be there.

Then just a couple days later, a dear friend loses her little boy in a household accident. An accident that some might say could have been prevented, yet we are to trust that God has allowed this for a purpose. That's always a hard pill to swallow when it happens to someone we love. Humanity steps in and asks, "Why?" Then I sit in silence and instead of asking more questions or trying to imagine the 'what if it happened differently', I instead choose to listen. I wait...hearing nothing but silence. I cry. It's so incredibly difficult to not know why things happen, especially when it happens to lovely people.

I remembered the words I shared with my friend on Facebook and I rush over to go through that 'more' link to find that conversation so I can re-read my advice, hoping to see if it makes sense when you're smack dab in the middle of one of those human moments of confusion and pain. I wanted to smack myself for typing that advice, because now it made no sense to me. My flesh wants an answer! The word 'humanity' seems to stick in my head. I am mortal right now and things don't look the same when you're mortal. But when that day comes when we are freed from this mortality and enter that spiritual realm, things will look different. 

Do we still choose to rest in Christ and trust in God's sovereignty when tragedy strikes? Why do we become more angry with God when it happens to lovely people and we thrive on the revenge when it happens to people we dislike? 

Humanity

Maybe those moments of realizing how small we are as humans brings us to the place where we look up to He who is not human. Maybe our humanity humbles us. When we question these events in life are we stepping back into the building of the Tower of Babel? Trying to gain access to God on our own human efforts?

Sometimes advice is an easier pill to swallow when we aren't faced with life. Hypothetical dialogue seems easier to deal with when it's not actually needing to be applied in reality.

I don't think I have a good answer for this...some things we learn things in hind sight.

~Sis