Perfect.

I agree. Scoffpiggy's response was one of my favorites. Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are doing well.

I read this article, and it's very hard to add anything to the responses already places forward here. I will stress one thing, though, that stood out to me.

Do you think its an accident the young girl you care about is in your life?

I don't think there's anyone that has answers to the questions you put forth, and I don't think your faith is small for asking those questions. Blind faith is not truely faith.. And asking questions shows that your faith can overcome the answers you may or may not find. Most of the time, we are merely too close to the trees to see the forest.. maybe you are someone else's answer to a prayer.

I, as well, like your's and Brandie's fav.

Trinitie

no comments

Some people say God is merciful but they commit murder mercilessly in his name. How can it be.
Some people say God is creator but they destroy his creation. How can it be.
Some people say God is owner of whole world but they claim ownership for a piece of land. How can it be.
Some people say God is all powerful but by their evil acts they only want to prove the other way. How can it be
Some people say they are servants of All Powerful & All Merciful God but by their acts they want to prove other way. How can it be.

Don't listen to "some people." Listen to God. Ps 118:8

dorks!

I love your questions and comments. That is the truest picture of what faith is about. From my experience I see how many of us Christians have failed in giving answers too quickly and not allowing someone to discover the answers. Sunday school answers are sometimes crap because they are laced with a religious stream of thought and not necessarily compared to the Truth. I've also discovered that we are too caught up in the religious things of faith that we forget to speak up for or take care of the hurt, rejected, broken hearted and marginalized.

So let me ask this, since when does God have a job? He's Creator, Father, Provider, Protector, etc., but are those really jobs when it comes to God? Or are they a result of his character?

Finally, your "lack of trust" is not about having small faith. It's about discovering what it means to have faith. By asking your questions you have more faith than most Bible-thumpers I know. Blessings to you for asking your questions and not just relying on man's answers.

Gibby

Tenille, I didn't even bother to read any of the comments that were left before me so please pardon me if I repeat anything that anyone has already posted. I have known you since my very first days as a Christian and truely am blessed that I met you at the time of life that I did because most of the people at Navarro knew me from my wild days and weren't willing to believe that I truely did love the Lord and wanted to serve him. We both know that I am very far from your typical Bible-thumping Christian who will ever give you some typical Sunday School answer to any of your life questions. But what I will tell you that is as long as you continue to ask yourself the wrong questions you will continue to search for the wrong answers!

You know alot about where I come from (though we haven't truely talked in a few years) and have knowledge of the fact that I have had to overcome a few of the hardest life situations a person can be dealt. I have been through some of the darkest times that you can experience through life and spent quite a few years of my juvenile life in lock ups and placements. And I too spent many a nights wondering how if there was a God he would allow me to have to suffer through all the trials and tribulations that I had to endure. But when I finally came to know Christ I realized that I had spent my entire life asking all the wrong questions, and all of us know that as long as we ask the wrong questions we are going to continue to get the wrong answer.

I think that as long as we sit and question God's integrity about how he handles the balance of Good and Evil we will continue to look in the wrong direction for insight. I know it has been said a hundred thousand times about the fact that God will not give one person more than he can endure but I honestly think that that is what life boils down to. He knows to what extreme each one of us can be pushed and within that he uses life to challenge us. There are many people who would have broke and crumbled having to deal with all the adversity that I dealt with by the age of 18 but God didn't allow it to happen to just anyone, he allowed it to happen to me. He knew without having to endure all of it I would have never come to know and rely on him. Just as the circumstances you endured led you to find Christ and place him as the one who directed your life he knows that this little girl if she chooses him will be able to over come everything hurdle that has been placed in her life and find him and begin to run the race that he has laid out before her.

As long as we are on this earth we are going to live in a world that is a battle ground of good vs evil and have to be prepared to see things that we cannot ever imagine a "gracious God" allowing to happen. But at the end of the day we have to understand that this is not Heaven and we are not living in a perfect world. We are living in a world that has been corrupted by evil and sin and we are called to be the Light to this world. It will not always be easy and we will not always understand why things happen but for crying out loud if we asked God to right every single wrong and him make every situation easy for us to overcome where in the world would faith and trust come into play? Why would we have needed Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross?

I don't think that the question we should be asking ourselves is "how does God allow these things to happen" but rather "How am I going to use each of these events and situations to further the name of Christ"! Nothing that this little girl has endured and overcome has snuck up on God, he never woke up one day and said to himself "How in the world did that happed to this little girl, that wasn't part of my plan". He knew long before she was ever even created that this was going to happen and it is by our faith and persistence in seeking God and leading this little girl to him that he is going to be Glorified through all the evil and dark things she has had to endure. Evil things are going to happen as long as we are in this corrupt place known as earth, the best we can hope for is that we find a way to use each and every circumstance that we come upon to bring Glory to the King of Kings.

In closing God's job is to be just that God! He has never left or forsaken you or the little girl that is in question here. But at the same time he isn't going to try to make decisions for either of you, if he did what kind of relationship would that be anyway? God isn't looking for robots, if he wanted that he would have created that. Rather he wants children who love him and seek him through every trial and tribulation that life brings there way. There are going to be good times and rough times but at the end of the day God is right there just as he said he would always be. I don' think that when we trust in him that we ever just limp through life, but rather we roll through obstacles all the while growing closer and more life Christ. Do we pass on some of the hurt and anguish from our lives? Of course we do but it just speaks even louder the dedication and love of Christ to help us overcome those trials.

P.S. I don't think your faith in Christ is small because you lack trust in him, rather I would say your faith in Christ is growing as you continue to pursue answers to the questions in which you have in your heart. I don't think there is ever a wrong question that you can ask God to answer for you!

Steven,

Wow! I'm impressed by your thoughtful response. It's been a few years since we chatted, and I can tell that God has been up to some amazing things in your life. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience, strength, and hope. I would love to catch up with you in the near future!