Have you ever stopped to wonder how people view you and your faith? Put yourself in their shoes? Have you been asked questions such as: if your God is so great then why is their disease? If your God is so great why are people dying? If your God is so great then why is there war and famine?
My God IS so great! My God gave us free will to make our decisions. He gave us the ability to choose which path we are going to follow and not force us to do His will. What does this mean? Why do we have diseases, war, famine, etc.? We choose not to follow God’s plan in our lives. He gave us FREE WILL.
Free Will defined in the dictionary is this:
| synonyms: |
volition, independence, self-determination, self-sufficiency, autonomy, spontaneity; |
2 Chronicles 7:14 King James Version (KJV)
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
WOW! Think about that! Just give it a moment to sink in. If we humble ourselves. How do you humble yourself? Well, think about it – can you admit to having made a mistake? What happens when you make a major mistake and you owe someone an apology? Do you apologize? Or is it too difficult to eat that humble pie?
What’s next? Pray. Prayer is like a conversation with God. We are talking to him and asking for His forgiveness, admitting we are wrong, that we don’t know everything and that we make mistakes. We are seeking Him out.
Yet, these two things alone won’t change the path we are walking. We are required to do one more action; we need to turn away from the path we are on. What? I have to not just humble myself in admitting I was wrong and apologize but I need to STOP doing what I am doing? I need to change my course? I need to use my free will to not continue down a destructive path?
Well, okay say I “might” be willing to do this? Then what? God will hear us – it means not only is He listening to what we are saying but He is hearing what we are saying. We are making a change, we are showing Him we are willing to do something different. We are willing to set ourselves on a different path using the free will He gave us.
He has heard us. What does He do in return? He FORGIVES us. He accepts our apology. Then he takes it a step further and heals our land. He fixes our mistakes! He helps us when we are willing to admit we are on the wrong path, apologize and change our ways. All of which is easier to say than to actually do.
So, yes, my God is great. Yes, He has allowed us to cause these problems in our lives. Yes, He is willing to help us to fix them once we acknowledge our mistakes and ask for help. Yet, if we are unable to do apologize and ask for help in our daily lives with our friends and family, how much more difficult do we make it on ourselves when we need to do it with our God?
