You can go through life aimless with no regard for any type of recourse. But then there is that one moment where time seems to stop and the life as you knew it has suddenly crashed at your feet. Who do you turn to? Where do you begin to reconstruct your life back to some sort of recognizable existence. Most people will look immediately to something or someone to blame other than the person in the mirror. When there is no other source of blame, then and only then will the person finally admit they have no idea how it happened. They still won’t take responsibility for it. They will go as far as to blame God for their misfortune rather than admit they created the whole mess themselves. Are we as people so afraid of failure that we will standby and let our whole lives crash at our feet before taking the steps to correct our lives before disaster strikes?

No matter what we do in life it always takes some minor adjustments to keep things move the right direction. Driving in a straight line, you still have to make adjustments to keep the vehicle straight and on the road. Or without minor adjustments after takeoff a plane will just fly right into the ground. Life is no different. How many decisions do you make in a day? Decisions, even small in nature, if combined together would ultimately change your whole life at the end of the day. I challenge you to write down or even do a talley of every decision you make in a day. I am sure it will shock you to your core at what you come up with. Also, you will miss a lot more then you have counted cause there are things we just look at as every day things and don’t even realize it still is a decision that we choose to make daily.

So why say all this? Where is this all going? Well people as a society take things and other people for granite until something goes wrong. Then they worry about what other people do or don’t do to help them out. When things get really bad they will give a half hearted effort of a prayer with a promise of “I’ll do better” or “I’ll never do this again”. Or they will look to the wrong places and the wrong people for help. Out of site, out of mind until something goes wrong, then they want all the help possible. What people don’t realize God is with us always! He is with us when we are not paying attention. When we are focused on everything else in life he is watching and waiting for us to reach out to him. If we look to God and make God first in all decisions we make in life, things tend to work out better in our lives. He will guide us, he even sent us Jesus as a living example of how we should live our lives and he is our comforter who guides us in our times of need. We do not see him physically but when we pay attention, we can feel his presence and we can feel his guidance. But people tend to ignore him cause he is not physically present in front of us. We need to make God first in all things. If we make God first in all things, he becomes present in front of us, present in us, and present in all things to do with our lives. He is our light that guides us in our daily lives. We must look to God for guidance, praise him and give him the glory of all that we have.

We can take a lesson from Job’s story told in the Book of Job of the Bible. He was an upright and Godly man. There were none like him on Earth, he began his day with offerings to God not just for his own sins but for his family’s sins as well. God had protected Job from the evil of the world due to his obedience but allowed Satan to take everything he owned and his family from him to show the strength of Job’s faith. During the lowest points and the most painful of points in Job’s life he never blamed God, he never turned from God. He still sought God’s grace and prayed for forgiveness of his transgressions. Can we say the same? I dare to say we can not. We blame everything and everyone else, even God before we blame ourselves for any troubles in our lives. We try to fix the troubles instead of asking for forgiveness and before seeking God’s intervention.

Job 1:21: “And said, Naked came I out my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Everyone faces seasons of loss, grief, and suffering. Instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” A better response is to ask, “How will I respond to this?” If you stay close to God when things get dark-that is if you resist the urge to blame him or turn your back on him-you will find opportunities to grow and perhaps even thrive in the midst of your trials. You will also set a powerful example of faith in action for others.

We have no idea why suffering and evil falls upon our lives or bad things happen to good people. We certainly are in no position to challenge God and his wisdom. But we should pray for grace and strength continue to believe when our whole world comes crashing down around us. Stop blaming everyone and everything including God for the bad things. Take a good hard look in the mirror, take responsibility for those things, and then Pray to the Almighty God for the strength, guidance, and wisdom to thrive in the midst of those dark times. Job 19:28:But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?

I leave you with An Eternal Perspective read as you will, Job 19:21-29. May you be blessed all of the days, until next time.