I believe that God gives us all the tools we need to succeed in life, but how or if we use them, He leave's to us. Would you force your grown child to do something they did'nt want to do, even if you knew it was it was good for them? NO! At some point, they need to learn from their own mistakes AND successes; bad and good.
You are trying to eliminate the possability that God has something even better for him, if he is just patient enough to wait. God do'es thing's according to His plan and timetable, not our's. We all need to learn this.
To the first part...I would say you are being very childish and arrogant. To the second part....not a snowball's chance. Why should He apologize to you for your childishness and arrogance? I don't wish to hurt your feeling's, but you do not show yourself in a very favorible light when you do that.
You are absolutely correct. We alone are resposible for the decisions we make in life....the good one's and the bad one's. When the time comes to make a decision, do we not have the equal right to make it bad or good? The choice is our's to make. God allow's that choice. But, if WE screw up our choice by making a bad one, we need to hold OURSELVES accountable, not God. Facing up to our own accountability can and is a very hard thing to do at times. God's 'plan' is never for us to do wrong. Like a good parent should, He want's nothing but the best for His children. If your child wanted a AK-47 to play with, would you let him/her have it? Of course not! It is the same way with God and His relationship with us. He will not allow us to have something that is wrong for us, unless we get too persistant, and then He may allow it to teach us a lesson. And sometimes the lesson can be deadly.
I've escaped more than one snare in my lifetime....enough to know I had help in doing so. I can be a very arrogant person at times, but I do try to temper that arrogance with reality. I know who my savior is and it is'nt myself.
God did the same for me! I have had TB, Polio, Cancer, a major Heart Attack last year and a auto accident that by all right's should have killed me, and yet, God delivered me. He has also given me a healthy son and daughter and that, in a way you would not believe. The first best friend I ever had was taken at a young age, my brother's first wife. She was the first person to ever be there for me on a personal level, without any attached condition. If I needed help with school work, she was there! If I just needed someone to talk too, she was there. Whatever the occasion and for no occasion at all...she was there. She and my brother came down with pneumonia at the same time. God took her and spared my brother. Why? My brother was still in the hospital when she was buried. Why? She left 2 babe's behind. Why? I don't have the answer for those questions, but, I do know that my life was blessed for the short time she was around me...and not only me, but everyone who knew her. All I know is that bad alway's accompanies good, and you have to accept them both.
I don't know how lovely a man I am, but, I do know you were not ranting. You were only asking a question that many of us ask, myself included....Why do bad things happen to good people? The answer is, there is no clear cut answer. On a personal level, a lot of bad and good things have happened to me in my life time and I can not say why. I have some answer's looking back in retrospect and some of them I wish I did'nt know. But in my case, I believe God has given me the grace to accept what I have learned and a opportunity to do something constructional with the knowledge He has given me. I only wish I was bright enough to use that knowledge the way He intended for me. Again, a lot of times I fail. But, that is what is great about our Heavenly Father! He understands that we will fail and He loves us anyway and continues to encourage us and give us opportunities to do better; just like you or I would to our own children.
Everybody is different and has different life experiences, I can only speak from my own and I have had more than my fair share. I only know and believe that God is in control of all His Creation. I don't profess to understand it at all, but I know and can see what He has done for me in my life. I can only be thankful and try to live my life in a way that is pleasing to my Creator. All too often I fail, knowing what God expects from me and how I have lived my life. But, God is loving and merciful in way's I can't comprehend, and all any of us can do, is our best. I leave all the details to God. He is the only one who has all the answer's since He is the author of all the question's.
I am deeply sorry for the loss of your grandaughter and for the pain your son and daughter-in-law have experienced. It is easy to blame God at times like this, because we as humans see a loss like this as cruel and senseless. But, we have to remember that we see things in a much narrower perspective than God do'es. We see things on a human perspective, while God see's them on a worldly one. God has a purpose and a plan for every thing He do'es and we can not alway's see the wisdom of what He choose's to allow happen. Perhap's it is a test to see if we will continue to love Him when He allow's bad things to happen to us. He is, after all, The Creator...and He alone is worthy of our love and adoration. Some times we love what He gives us, more than we love Him. Some times, He test's us with great patience in order for us to learn to be more dependant on Him. My heart go'es out to you Morgan, in your time of grief! I'm thinking by your words, that you are grieving as much, if not more so, than your son and daughter-in-law.
We have way, way too many things in common, I think. A personal pet peeve for me is in my church, where they allow coffee etc. in the worship area. At the end of service, there are alway's paper cup's, water bottles, and bulletines left on the seat's or the floor. I hate it when the Lord's House gets treated like a land fill.
I'm with you! I got a Sony 46' Bravia LCD and hooked up to my Sony 5 speaker surround system. I was going to get a 72' Panasonic, but it was too big for my apartment. What I have already blast's me out and makes the wall's shake. I have to be careful and play only when my neighbor's are at work, but I love it. With my over 600 dvd collection, I'm pretty well set for night's at the movies, if things get real boring with nothing else to do.
RE: Do you feel God answers prayers?
Perhap's you should ask yourself, "Is this where I am in err?"I can pretty much guarantee you....if you don't expect God to answer your prayer, He WON'T.