February 24, 2012

There are a lot of people in this life that look at their trials and difficulties, raise their head to the sky, and shout at the Lord for the troubles he has brought on them. They curse and rant and cry and shake their fists, "why?!"
There is something I need to say to these people.
Your Father in Heaven loves you. He loves you. So much. I have felt that love, seen it in fact. He is not spitefully putting you through these tribulations. Do not forget that you have agency. You have complete control over your actions. Although you are not altogether in control of your circumstances, you can take charge of how you handle them. There is no need to despise your God because he "let" something happen to you, you can instead turn away from that anger and find the lesson he wants you to learn from this trial. Trials and tribulations can come from, in my opinion, three sources. One, others' poor choices. Every action has a reaction; even the laws of physics support the ideology that every action has a consequence. If someone makes a regrettable decision, it may affect you. This is not your fault, God is not putting you through it, someone was being unfortunately stupid. This does not give you permission to hate them, rather an opportunity to practice forgiveness and patience. Two, from your own poor choices. You cannot treat your life in a bad way expecting it to be good back to you. There is a law in heaven, irrevocably decreed, that dictates consequences to every sin and good choice. When you break that law you can't expect not to have a punishment. It is a natural law. Three, your Father loves you so much that he wants you to grow into your potential, he wants to push you to become all you can become. Any good sports coach is going to push their players hard to get good. Every human has to go through the refiners fire to become better or break altogether. Every trial is simply pressure turning the coal of your soul into a diamond. Don't be upset with him for trying to help you improve and progress, as is the point of this life.
Don't feel angry.
Life gets hard sometimes, stay strong.