God's Amazing Love for Us

I had a discussion with a dear friend last night about God, and how He reacts to decisions in our lives.

This friend felt like recent events in her life were evidence of God punishing her for a decision she made several years ago. A decision that she made with her heart, not intentionally committing any sins or knowingly disregarding the will of God, mind you.

I told her I just can't see it that way.

Does God punish us for unrepented sins? Absolutely. Do we sometimes reap the consequences of our sinful actions? Absolutely. Does God wreak havoc on our life because we made one seemingly innocent mistake a few years ago? Well, no one knows the mind of God, but I don't think so.

So here's how I see it:
When we are born, God has this perfect plan for our life. All we have to do is follow Him perfectly. Be within His perfect will all the time. Every second. Then we will live this perfect life and be blessed perfectly.

The problem being that we, as humans, are not perfect. No one can follow God perfectly. No one can be within His perfect will every second. None of us are without sin. And we all make mistakes.

But does that mean that God seeks to punish us? No. God loves us. We are His children. Are there sometimes consequences for our bad actions? Sure. There are also "consequences" for our good actions as well.

I think when we take a step outside of God's perfect will, then He creates a new plan for our life, and begins directing us down a new path. It might be awfully close to the old path, but we as an imperfect person decided to take a detour, so now He has to rearrange the path to get us back to the next best thing.
Sometimes there are little detours. Little tiny imperfect moves on our part that we don't even realize shift our reality.
Sometimes there are big detours. We knowingly sin against our Father. We make a BIG mistake.
But at the end of the day, even if God knows we're gonna have to hit some potholes to get thru this new road, He still wants us to be on His road. He still wants us to see the beautiful views, and be blessed by His goodness. He still wants the very best for us.

Again, no one knows the mind of God. And yes, there are times when we are punished for our sins. And yes, we do reap the consequences (or blessings!) of our actions. But just because things aren't going your way doesn't mean you are necessarily paying the price for a seemingly innocent mistake you may (or may not) have made years ago. Maybe it's just the road with potholes that takes you to new mountaintops. You just gotta take the bumps as they come and wait for the road to smooth out.

Take care. God bless.