Something has been pressing on my heart lately and usually that means I am going to end up writing about it. Yet again, this is one of those posts that I was hesitant about..but after countless sleepless hours tossing and turning over it I finally decided to let it work it's way out of my head.

It's about God's will. And I'm just going to go ahead and put this disclaimer out there: I don't understand all of scripture and I am NOT a theologian, but I do know that I'm okay with not having it all figured out. I know the love and the voice of the Father and that is good enough for me. All I can do is keep digging and to give people a window into how certain life experiences change the way you think, and how certain life experiences force you to dig deeper into the heart of the Father.

It is my very very real belief that, as a believer, one of the very worst things you can say to someone who has just lost a child/found out they have cancer/lost a spouse/had a painful divorce/etc.....that it "must have been God's will."

We cannot attribute all of life's happenings to "God's will," because we know for a fact that we live in a world where sin and destruction and the reign of the enemy has entered in. If we want a look into God's heart for humanity--we already know the end result. (Rev. 21:4)

If we were to begin attributing things of death, destruction, and sin to "God's will," we would put ourselves in the sticky situation of deciding which belong to the hand of God and which do not. A bombing that kills innocent people? The death of a child? An abusive husband or father? Often when I'm perusing pinterest in the "everything" category, I see SO many quotes that say things like, "Sometimes we ask God to change our bad circumstances not realizing he put us in the circumstance to change us."

I cringe every time I see something like that. We are so quick to believe that God moves us around like chess pieces into less than favorable circumstances to "make us stronger," when in reality-some of our circumstances are based on choice and others are based on the fact that we have to live in a world where bad things happen and in the end God can always bring good out of it but that does not mean he caused it.

Let me give you an example:
My dad is an awesome dad.  He's always had my best interest in mind and he always had a desire to protect me and to have me experience all things good in my life. Despite the fact that I could have gone to my dad and gotten all the wisdom I needed to avoid this (and most) negative situation(s), I decided to be an independent individual and date someone who was not good for me. I was almost college aged and felt that I had a good handle on who I did and did not want to date. As the relationship began, my dad was able to point out red flags to me that he saw, and encourage me to think again, but ultimately I decided I was going to continue dating this fellow. So I did. And then he cheated on me multiple times. And I experienced some serious heartbreak. Now, this obviously is an example of a cause and effect circumstance, but there is a major difference between my dad allowing me to date this man versus going out and choosing him for me to date knowing that he would eventually hurt me. After the incident ended, my dad was there to comfort me and to offer his protection and also teach me about what kind of guys NOT to date, but he didn't ever look at me and say "I'm so glad you agreed to date him so I could teach you this lesson."

To reiterate: there is a major difference between God allowing pain and suffering to happen and causing pain and suffering to happen. The part I claim to not understand is not whether he caused the suffering, but rather what causes him to allow some and heal others..knowing that ALL of it can't be fixed right now...but that eventually all pain and suffering WILL be erased.

*When you tell someone that their baby died because it was "God's will," you are essentially saying that you believe in a Heavenly Father who kills babies for the greater good. For a greater purpose. That he is literally causing death to come upon an innocent child so that we will be made into stronger/more faithful/more mature individuals. Sounds intense, right? But this widely held belief is not supported in scripture. When Jesus taught us to pray "on Earth as it is in Heaven" he didn't include for us to pray "on Earth as it is in Heaven unless it's more beneficial for some of the crappy earth stuff to keep happening to make super strong believers!" 

I thought about inserting scripture verses here to help me make my point, but I urge you-if this idea is new to you, just open your bible and read an entire book at a time starting with the birth of Jesus. Jesus tells us that if we have seen him, we have seen the Father. There were some people that did not get healed by Jesus, but he never walked around "not healing some because it would teach them a lesson." And he certainly did not CAUSE death and illness to teach anybody anything. There are SO many verses taken out of context in regards to God "causing evil" so do your research when something pops up that seems contrary to all of this.

Do you see the difference? It may seem small, but it is the difference in believing in a loving father who helps you in hard times versus a father who calls illness and strife upon you to teach you a lesson.

I've mentioned this before, but one way to see into the heart of the Father is to look at the place where he currently resides. His kingdom is marked by full restoration/no suffering/no pain/no illness/no sadness and Jesus asked us to pray that His kingdom would break in where we are and that his will would be done on earth AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. This clues you in to the fact that where we are is not a place where his ultimate will is being realized at the moment.

Which also clues you in to the fact that babies dying and cancer happening and terrorist attacks and child abuse and all other horrible things that happen here are not the work of his hand but a condition of this earth and the enemy's reign.

If you LET him, he can take any bad circumstance you have faced bring good out of it, just as my earthly father did for me after my high school heart break (and countless other times.) But that does not mean that he caused it to lead you to a higher place.

 So, please. No matter what happens with Elsie, and no matter what happened with Ellie, and no matter what horrible thing your friends and family may be walking through or have walked through in the past--do not tell them it must be God's will. Instead, pray that God's heart and Kingdom would invade where they are now. This IS how Jesus taught us to pray.

And I'm not going to argue with Jesus.




Here's a nice little article with scripture references if you're looking for more.
http://www.greatbiblestudy.com/gods_will_on_earth.php