Life is Full of Surprises!

Life is full of surprises. The company I work for was doing very well but our business started to slide in 2006. Three years later we are doing forty percent (40%) less business.

A good friend of mine was planning and saving for retirement for many years. Just two years after he took his pension he died of prostate cancer.

On September 11th of 2001 thousands of people got on the train, subway, taxi or personal car and went to work just like every other Tuesday morning in their life. Others boarded airplanes for a vacation or business trip as they had done many times before. Unfortunately many of these same individuals did not live to eat their lunch much less go home to their families or retire in comfort.

We discover in God’s Word (The Bible) the He (God) has “…decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.” (Job 14:5 – NLT). James tells us: “How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone.” (James 4:14 – NLT).

How do we make sense of these tragedies? Do we live long because we are “good” people and do we die young if we are “bad” people? Is God sort of like an evil puppet master who takes sinister delight in pulling the rug out from under us just when we think everything is wonderful?

There are many things that we have trouble understanding. We see from our experience that, from our perspective, bad things happen to “good” people and good things happen to "bad" people. Solomon asks the question: “What do people get for all their hard work?” (Eccl. 1:3 – NLT). Later he observes: “Both of them die. Just as the fool will die, so will I.” (Eccl. 2:15 – NLT).

At this point in our thinking the overall outlook is pretty bleak and depressing. We will examine solutions to our dilemma later in this discussion. To give you a little preview of coming attractions Paul tells us that God has “...great love for us...” (Romans 5:8 – NLT) and that “…God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them...” (Romans 8:28 – NLT).

So don’t despair! There is a bright spot on the horizon and we will discover what that is in a future post.

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