When I have a good day I say, "God, thank you. You're really blessing me." Blessing
is a word I think only Christians use. I've heard it means to "speak
well about a thing", but I think it's used more often like we just got
a raise, or a gift, or something. "God, bless me" means I want my
business to do well, or I want a motorcycle, or I want to pay my rent
this month.
When I'm having a bad day I say, "God, don't forget me. Please hear my prayers", as if He may have forgotten about me.
One of my favorite communicators, Bill Bahr, tells a story of a man
who by a series of events misses his flight and when the plane crashes
and everyone dies, an article is written in a Christian publication
saying, "God was watching out for him". Not long after that article,
another article is written by the wife of a man, who by a series of
miraculous events, made that flight, and the last
communication they had was waving goodbye with joy in their hearts at
how God had orchestrated his ability to make his flight...that would take him to his death. Was God working in one man's life and not the other?
People are healed of cancer after much prayer. People die of
cancer after much prayer. People are born beautiful and talented;
people are born with deforming diseases.
My perception of how God should operate is so often focused on how
He should make my life better. But one of the reasons His name is
"God" is because He is smarter, wiser, and infinitely better (perfect
actually) than me in all arenas. I can't figure out the reasoning
behind all that God does. But, I know that I am loved by Him because I
FEEL it! I know with my heart that the promises written in the Bible
are true. An act of faith? Absolutely. But once you feel the warmth
of the sun on your skin, there's no question that there's really a ball
of fire in the sky.
So whether I’m looking at one stitch on the backside of a tapestry
and God’s looking at all of the front, or “I have point of view and God
has view”, the bottom line is: I'm not skilled to grasp all that God
has planned and I'm okay with that, because His ways are higher than
mine. And I trust him.