God's here...

As most of you know (the five or six people who actually read my blog) I lost my cousin Steven last week, unexpectedly. Needless to say his family, my family, have been devastated. Steven was one of the greatest hearts on this planet. He was funny and kind, and a good friend. He will be sadly missed by many. Throughout this tragedy, I myself along with so many others had a hard time dissecting this. Human nature demands answers, reasons, rationalizations. Who else can we question, other than God? I debated on doing this blog, as it's somewhat personal, more personal than I would normally share with close family and friends, let alone the whole world wide web. But I hope through my writing someone may be helped, because I know that just by writing this, I will have been helped. So after much type:delete, type:delete, I've decided to post my thoughts on things.

First of all I do not believe God is responsible for all the bad in the world, for any of it. He’s not responsible for the death, destruction, fear and hate, that we see everyday. Our comprehension of God is impossible to it’s fullest capability. Our thoughts and God’s plan are not parallel, we will never understand it fully in this life. God’s plan, his will for you is that you decide your fate, your destiny He made the plan, by giving us life through Christ, salvation.

In the beginning, God made a perfect world, provision for everything. The only mistake (if you will) is that he made man to be able to choose. He gave the choice. Most of the time, we choose the wrong thing. Who knows how long Adam and Eve enjoyed life in the garden before the temptation was too much, and the wrong choice was made which catapulted everything wrong with the world today. (Really think about that.) We want to blame God for the things that happen that are bad or don’t seem fair but we are in charge of our course, of our path. If we get detoured, then that's not really God's fault. God does not control that, we do. God gives us choices, and then we have the results after that.

God’s plan is perfect, if in fact we choose him. Each day is like choosing a pathway, you can always change course, for the good or the bad, but it's your choice. I do think that God may intercede throughout and deal with you accordingly, especially with prayers being lifted on your behalf.

I'm not sure that I would believe that there is an underlying reason behind everything that happens, that Steven didn't die to teach us all some valuable lesson. I believe that he died because of a medical problem, a human defect (we all have them), but through his death, if we open our hearts, our minds, our souls, we may gain something in return. Then and only then, would his death not be in vain. One event can set so many others in motion, but it is our choice to respond to that event. (I really hope this makes sense). That's the good of all of it, there's good that can come from a tragedy, there are lessons that can be learned from a tragedy, but those are not always the reasons for the tragedy. Those lessons, that goodness, is just an extension of God's mercy into our otherwise pitiful existence. I don't believe in coincidences; I don't believe that things randomly happen, but I think the reasons behind them are more concise than we allow. We accept divinity on some levels and then other levels we do not. So when you see something that reminds you of Steven, when you have a dream that brings something back to memory of that person you'r missing, it's not coincidence, or subconcious, it's an extension of God's grace, his mercy.

(I know I'm not explaining this well as I wish I could).

It's through our weakness that God is made strong, it's through our suffering that we find our source of strength. Sometimes I think the goal is not to conquer the mountain but to absorb the strength for the climb. To maybe realize you need the strength in the first place. Do we blame Henry Ford everytime there's a car wreck, or Benjamin Franklin everytime we lose electricity? NO. We do not. Is blaming God any different?

I guess in summation of all this what I'm trying to say is no matter what choice you make, what path you choose, God is there, working incessantly, to show his works through you or to you, whatever you need at the time. His plan is perfect in that, whatever choice you make, if you seek him, if you know him, you'll find comfort, solace,  and mercy. We're not here to merely exist, but to overcome, to continue to show the world that God is good.