Well, for the day, Jason has given up the reigns of the Daily Buffet and passed them off to me, Ray. There is much more pressure than I thought there would be! Jason does a great job and I hope I can live up to his high standard for the post today.
As I was deciding what to write about today, an event in my life kept coming to mind. A couple of weeks ago the stomach bug was making it’s rounds around the Russell household. Passing from child to child and then to me. As I was making my way home from Unum in the middle of the afternoon sending my half digested lunch back into the box from wence it came. I started questioning, questioning why God would create such a miserable illness and why I had to get it? I even said it out loud to my wife Marti, what is the point? why would God create such an illness? I truly felt as if I was going to die and was upset that I had to endure this sickness. Well as fast as it came the stomach virus was gone and I was better. Since then I have thought much about my question of that day. You see so many times we see bad things happen to people and we say well God is in control and He has a plan. A person has cancer and we say God has a plan, an earthquake kills thousands and God is in control, a drunk driver kills a co-worker walking in to work and well God’s will was this but let me get a small little stomach virus and I question God?! Is my faith so weak? I pray not but it is something to think about.
Anytime I think of trials my mind is always drawn to Job. Job dealt with so much he lost his things, family, and health. His wife and friends told him to curse God and die but he wouldn’t do it. Job did however get frustrated and question God. God allowed this but then responded:
Job 38
The LORD Speaks
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
2 “Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone-
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels [a] shouted for joy?
8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
13 that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
God put Job back in his place and sometimes we need to be put there ourselves, to understand that God’s plan is not our own:
Isaiah 55:8 (New International Version)
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
So today as we are out in the world let’s not just say God has a plan when bad things happen to us or others but truly believe that God has a plan for all things that happen even if we don’t understand why.