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UGW #12: God works all things for good?

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  Understanding God's Will #12: I used to take comfort in the fact that God does whatever He wants to do and that God causes everything to happen for a reason.    But if that’s not the case, then what?                I once heard about a mom and dad who were going away for vacation.    They had to leave their nearly-adult teenager at home.    They knew that he might end up making bad decisions; he might throw a party and do things that they didn’t want him to do.    And they had the power to prevent that.    They could have stayed home or sent Grandma over to watch him.                But in their wisdom, they knew that he was going to be an adult and on his own in college in just a year or so.    And they realized that this was a good opportunity to test him and to see what decisions he would make.    They encouraged him to choose wi...
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UGW #11a: Does everything happen for a reason?

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  Understanding God's Will #11: But doesn't everything happen for a reason?  Don’t you think that God could’ve caused bad things to happen for a reason, even if He didn’t really want them to happen?                  Sometimes, maybe.    I wish that I could say no ... and yes.    No, because I don’t want to think that God causes bad things to happen.    And yes, because I want to believe that all bad things have a purpose and that He is in total control.    It makes the bad things a lot easier to face then.    (And for the record, I think that our view of what’s “bad” can and does differ from God’s.    Our perspective is so, so cloudy and flawed compared to God’s.)              I think that the Bible does show times when He causes something “bad” for a reason (but He never causes sin or evil).    Some...
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UGW #10: Why do bad things happen? (And "Are tragedies gifts from God?")

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  Understanding God's Will #10: (This will be a long one as I look at what the Bible says compared to what Calvinism says.  And I included another post on mine on the end of this one,  "Are Tragedies Gifts From God?" ) Why Do Bad Things Happen? Can bad things happen that God doesn’t want to happen? Obviously, yes!    We fell, didn’t we?  Because of our sin in the Garden of Eden, w e introduced death and sin into the human race and the world.   (I say "we" because we all stem from Adam and Eve and because any one of us, given enough time in the Garden of Eden, would have done the same thing.)   And this is something God didn't want when He created the world good.  It's why He warned Adam and Eve to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Because it would make them aware of evil.  It would unleash evil in the world because they would essentially be choosing Satan over God, giving Satan part of their dominion ove...
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