Our Father, Janitor in Heaven???

Let me start with this:

Proverbs 19:3
A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord.

"How could God have let this happen to me?"

"I've prayed and prayed but God hasn't done anything to make things better yet!"

"I'm done with God. I've been a believer all my life and look at what a mess my life is."

"If God loved me, He wouldn't have let this happen."

Oh Dear. Haven't we all heard these statements or even said some of them. I am personally guilty of statement number 2. My daughter for instance is dating a guy whose 15 year old sister doesn't believe in God anymore because she contracted a disease in 8th grade and almost went blind and the medication made her gain about 80 lbs and she was made fun of and suffered a lot. So if God was real and loved her....... he never would have let that happen. Oh boy, how do you handle that one? At least we have the boyfriend going to Church with us. Hoping the family comes too some time. Sometimes you should just say nothing and let your life be the shining beacon that says "Come." This is where the personal relationship with God comes in....... lean not on your own understanding. Listen for what HE says to do.

One of the hardest lessons for me to learn about my walk with God you ask....... Free Will baby. Yep, I have free will to mess up my life and God is under no particular obligation to rescue me when I make bad decisions. What? So true though, we make bad decisions sometimes and things go wrong and in the middle of our mess sometimes we only look to God to be our janitor and clean up our mess and make it better. God is not our personal janitor, he is our Lord and to put him in the position of being our life's janitor is really insulting to HIM who wonderfully made you and loves you. That being said, since the hubby's lay off almost 2 years ago I have really reflected on how much of our mess is our fault and how much is the bad economy's fault. I have been crying out and crying out for help but it was only just recently that God has really dealt with me on claiming MY bad decision making and confess them to Him. I don't treat God like my personal janitor, I have a daily relationship with him but I sure do demote Him sometimes and hope for a clean up on aisle Finances. Or clean up on aisle impatient mom. It has been hard to recognize mistakes I have made and know that they have contributed to terrible things that I and my family have had to go through. But I realize now that God has been teaching me some personal accountability and maybe just maybe I might learn something and not you know, not repeat the same mistakes by asking God for his guidance in everything I do. Wow, what a concept? Ha ha. Well, it was a hard lesson for me at least.

I know a few people going through some pretty horrible times and lots of them are mad at God for not taking it away or making it better quickly. Sigh. Should I repeat it again?

A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord.

Sometimes our mess is our mess and we get mad at God for it? Sometimes we need to look at ourselves. We run up our credit cards, take out home equity loans to pretty up the place and take vacations we can't afford with out the credit and spend frivolously. Okay, but so what I can pay my bills. Oops, my hours got cut, oops, the company says I have to take a pay cut, oops, I got laid off. Now we can't pay all those bills and little to nothing is coming in and we are looking to God, and we totally should look to Him, but if nothing happens we just get mad at Him. Why are we getting mad at God? I know I got mad at him. God didn't tell us to run up lines of credit. I'm fairly certain the Bible tells you to pay as in cash for your stuff. I'm just using this as an example because lots of people have huge credit card debts, that wasn't my issue with God. But it is with lots of people I know. I found that I needed a good dose of getting mad at myself before I got mad at God and then a little humble confession to Him that I had messed up and repented. I just read the passage in Proverbs this morning and it just made me laugh because God has so dealt with me on this issue lately. Looking in the mirror is not always easy when it's under a microscope. Not so pretty eh? Yeah well, I'm glad he dealt with me in this and I am glad I confessed my bad decisions to Him who I feel confident will teach me a new thing. My heart did indeed rage against the Lord for a short time last year. He did nothing to me, we did it. And God is not the janitor in Heaven. Thank you Lord for letting me see my errors.

Why is it always God's fault when things aren't going our way???? Hmmmm........