Life Is Good

"For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, for those that are the called, according to His purpose" --Rom. 8:28

Abouna, who is the newest addition to my blogroll, has an interesting post today entitled, "Why isn’t God treating me fair?"

In it, he says this:

"There are so many of us, going through life today, who cannot seem to understand why we are not getting the type of life that we keep wishing for."

Read the rest here.

I started to make a comment on it, but as usual, My comment went too long, so again, I am publishing my comment as a blog entry. Here it is:

I too, am one of those who never seem to get the breaks. I have a brother who is exactly the opposite. As I often say, he could fall through the hole in a privy and come up smelling like a rose. I, on the other hand, would climb, stinking to high heaven out of the privy, simply to slip and fall back in.

I have also often said, my life is an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel without the adventure.

He and I discussed this once. He said he never knew anyone who had so much bad luck and I said I never knew anyone with such good luck. But, I said, If he was ever faced with some catastrophe, he would fall apart. On the other hand, catastrophe's happen to me every day. They are like water off a ducks back to me.

God knows what each of us can handle. He will never give us more adversity than we can take.

On my new job, I had to man a booth at a local Home and garden show, for the purpose of procuring sales leads. My day in the booth was on a Sunday.

Friday at the show was a good day. the weather was beautiful. So was Saturday. My co-workers got lots of leads those two days. Sunday came with snow, ice and freezing rain. The home show was almost empty of potential customers that day. I got one lead.

My boss was complaining about the weather causing such a bad turnout. I jokingly informed him that the bad weather was my fault, because God doesn't want me to succeed.

He took it as a joke and laughed but the truth be known, I wasn't joking.

I believe and have believed for some time that since God knows me, and knows that I would not be a good steward of any thing He might bless me with, He has decided in His wisdom, that I should remain as I am, until I finally learn to be responsible with what He gives me.

Sometimes lessons take a lifetime to learn.

I am comfortable with that, knowing that I have treasures laid up for me in Heaven. Given that this life time is only a twinkling of an eye in comparison to an eternity with God, This life is only a minor inconvenience.

Of course, it could be argued that I do these things to myself, and there would be ample evidence to suggest this theory is true.

In just the last couple of years, I have made the same mistakes in not exercising good judgement in stewardship, to wit:

I had a great job as a Lawn service Technician. I was making the most money I made in my life. The boss liked me, and I was doing a very good job. My customers were pleased with my performance. I had very few complaints with my work, either from customers or management, and those I had were taken care of promptly. I was flying high and feeling secure with my future.

Then, I bought a new car. Brand new, right off the lot, with 5 miles on the odometer.

In short, I got cocky and began to feel as if I had control of my life.

That was a mistake.

Within a week I had wrecked the company van. That wasn't enough to knock me down a notch or two. So, the very next day on the job, I did it again.

(This is the actual picture of the actual first accident. That's me, talking to the police officer there on the right)

Two weeks after I had made a 5 year commitment to pay enormous monthly payments on a new car, I was laid off, with a promise that in a couple of months, I could possibly come back to work again. That didn't happen, needless to say. Now, before I even made my first car payment, I had no money to pay it with.

Now, this is the way God works with me:

Two months later, I finally got a job that paid me enough to pay the car payments, although I had to work a couple of weeks before I got my first paycheck. Mere hours before the finance company repossessed my car (which I had to use on my new job), I caught my car payment up.

God had both blessed me and taught me a valuable lesson.

God may not always be on time, but He's never late.

The new job was better than the old one. I made more money than the former, and the hours were better. The work was thousands of times easier. I had a two hour lunch period, and was completely on my own, with no boss hovering over me. On top of all that, my expenses were deductible and I ended up not having to pay a cent in taxes, and got a huge tax refund!

I caught up on all my other bills, and was even able to start saving money.

Then, I began feeling cocky again, and against my better judgement, went out one weekend night and blew about $300.00 on a night of pure base debauchery. I won't go into details.

And, within a week after this one night of self gratification and self worship (for this is indeed what it was), I suddenly and without warning, lost my job. I went from wealthy to nearly penniless in mere days.

These examples are indicative of my whole life.

I have yet to learn, apparently.

But it's OK, really. I have learned one thing, although it may not be the only thing I need to learn, and that is, I am terribly irresponsible with God's gifts. Will I ever learn to be a good steward? Yes, I think so. I believe it is God's purpose for me to learn this lesson. And I believe God always fulfills His purpose.

If nothing else, as long as I fail to learn God's lessons, I am assured of a long life. He won't let me die without fulfilling God's purpose for my life.

Or maybe He will. Maybe that will be the final lesson. I don't know.

I am content with the knowledge that God will keep me safe, though bruised and battered, until I have fulfilled His purpose for my life.

Life is good.