By the way, regarding suffering

I am totally aware that the simple fact that circumstances are wacky around here does NOT automatically indicate that we're somehow not listening to God or being disobedient. I was just being somewhat facetious.

God's goal is for us to be more like Christ. What was Christ like? Kind... loving... gentle... Learning how to be kind, gentle and loving when everything is hunky-dory is, well, easy. Easy, and I don't have to rely on anyone but myself to do it. Loving someone who's hard to love? That's when my love becomes Christ-like, because it doesn't come from ME. Being kind even when I'm being sworn at, kicked, spat at, or insulted? That kindness comes from God, not me, and when I can show that sort of kindness, it's evidence that I've relinquished control.

Rick also pointed out to me that the idea of "Everything is going exactly the way I want it to, therefore I must be right in the center of God's will" has no basis in Scripture. In fact, oftentimes it's the people who are in the center of God's will who are suffering the most. Jesus said of the apostle Paul, "I will show you how much you must suffer for my Name." It's very shortsighted of most of us churchgoers when we assume that "plagues" are allowed to happen to us in order to correct some wrong that we're doing... and it's a very common conclusion that most of us jump to. Was Paul stoned and shipwrecked and snakebitten because he was being disobedient? No. Those things happened to him so that God's power and sovereignty would be displayed in his life.

The same thing is true of a child who rebels. How else is a person able to realize just how much God loves us than to have their own child turn against them -- because only then can we see just exactly what we do to God. We turn away, shake our fists, do what we want, and yet He continues to love us, to pursue us, to want us back. When I can show that very same kind of love to my rebellious child, I then know that I have the love of the Father in me.

At its very core, suffering is God's way of saying, "Do you trust Me now?" How can we know the extent of our faith if it is never tested? In the book of Job, Job's "friends" counseled him, saying that it was obvious that he was being punished for some sin in his life and that if he would just confess it, it would all be made right. Job knew that that wasn't the case; he was penitent, but he also knew that his suffering was for some other purpose he didn't know of yet. Turns out he was right. And God never did tell Job why; he only required that Job trust him.

Answers In Genesis has this to say:

Jesus said something that is directly applicable to modern tragedies, such as the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States on September 11, 2001. Luke 13:4 records His words: "Those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them -- do you think they were sinners above all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no!" Suffering in our lives is not always related to our personal sin.

Note, however, that Jesus went on to say that "unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Though this may have been referring to perishing physically in the coming downfall of Jerusalem, the bottom line is that no-one is innocent. All of us are sinners and therefore condemned to die. Thousands of people died in the World Trade Center catastrophe, but the hundreds of millions of people who saw and heard about this event will also die one day -- in fact, thousands of them are dying every day -- because all humans have been given the death penalty because of sin.

I may never find out (in this life) why we had head lice and Norovirus all in the same week. It may be that it's just how it happened. At any rate, I'm going to give thanks to God for it. Like Corrie ten Boom and her sister Nollie in the concentration camp, the fleas which might've been seen as a "plague" were the very thing that kept the Nazi guards away from their barracks and allowed the women inside to conduct Bible studies... so they gave thanks for the fleas. They obviously served a higher purpose than just to accommodate comfort. If I have to be uncomfortable so that God's purposes are served, then so be it.

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Of course, we could be like my six-year-old son, who saw the nit combs as just exactly the items needed to build a particular gadget for his Batman.

Life hands you lemons; make lemonade ... Don't see problems, see opportunities ... Think different