Are all Trials from God?

[SRNDRALL]

Hi All - Are all trials in one’s life from God, large and small? As I go through my life experiencing things I want to make sure I am ever mindful of any potential lessons to be learned.

 

[PeterJohn]

I believe God has a hand in everything that goes on in our day to day lives.
Perhaps at some times He has more to do with it and other times not quite as much. But he started the spinning of the universe and knew where it would end up and knew of you and me before we were born as well as every trial we would face. So to say the least, He knows prehand, what decisions we “should” make and He will most likely judge us on these choices.

 

[JRKH]

Hi All - Are all trials in one’s life from God, large and small? As I go through my life experiencing things I want to make sure I am ever mindful of any potential lessons to be learned.

While I refrain from saying that all trials are “from God” as I do not wish to “blame” God for any misfortunes in my life, I do believe that there are constantly lessons that God is trying to teach me in whatever comes along…It just so happens that I tend to learn more from “trials” than from blessings…

So - look for the lesson every day…it will always point toward Love.

Peace
James

 

[acadian]

I don’t believe that they are. I think we bring some things upon ourselves by our own stupidity and choices. I believe some things happen to us because of the stupidity and poor choices of others. I think some things happen - disease, disaster - because that is just the way this imperfect world works.

But I do believe that God can bring good from all things, especially from suffering.

 

[Trishie]

Hi All - Are all trials in one’s life from God, large and small? As I go through my life experiencing things I want to make sure I am ever mindful of any potential lessons to be learned.

Some crosses are of our own making or of the impact of others choices and behavior upon us.

St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:4 assures us that “God comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” Therefore one of the lessons we learn though our own crosses, and mistakes, is compassion for others and the ability to provide support for them in their crosses…and their mistakes.

A prayer

Self made crosses

Holy God, I ask Your guidance and wisdom to ensure that the burdens I carry are only those that You intend.
Yet regardless of whether my crosses are of my making or due to others’ negative impact in my life, I offer my difficulty and suffering to You, in union with Christ’s suffering and in union with the Mass, in prayer to God for the salvation of souls.

Help me to strive my prayerful and practical best, inasfar as charity allows, to overcome these crosses of our making not Yours, these I create for myself by my unwise choices, or my sins, and those that I endure because of someone else’s behavior or choices that impact on me or my loved ones.

Let self-made crosses no longer weaken me for genuine crosses that You permit! Lift from me those crosses that I construct out of fear, doubt or self-accusation.
Free me of those crosses that I subconsciously build in desire for appreciation and love.
Free me from crosses of mistaken sense of mission. Lead me to accomplish the mission that You intend for me. Please grant that it will be so.

Free me from the errors of trying to carry and solve others’ problems where it is only my task to offer understanding, prayer, and what help that I can actually offer. Otherwise, in sleeplessness and anguish, I carry a cross of impracticality and helplessness that leaves me worn out, aiding no one. Yet inspire me to undertake, powerfully and sensitively, any means of genuine assistance to others. Grant that my own crosses and mistakes enable me to give consolation, support, and even enlightenment to others, through Your grace.

Help me to recognize my areas of personal weakness or scarring that burden and lead me to behave in ways unhelpful to others and myself, and that lay unnecessary crosses upon others’ shoulders. Fill me with the Holy Spirit’s prayer for them and with His love to flow through to them.

Please give me wisdom, faith, and charity to overcome tendencies and habits that impede me from Your service. Thus I, unhindered, am impelled to You in everything, in cooperation with the graces You desire to flood through my being at every instant, however secretly. Then, I am free, and I rejoice! For by Your mercy alone, my life is centered in You our God, in self no longer, and my crosses become sources of grace and blessing to others.

 

[Sam_777]

I don’t believe that they are. I think we bring some things upon ourselves by our own stupidity and choices. I believe some things happen to us because of the stupidity and poor choices of others. I think some things happen - disease, disaster - because that is just the way this imperfect world works.

But I do believe that God can bring good from all things, especially from suffering.

 

[SRNDRALL]

Thank you all for your responses! They are extremely helpful to me.

Trishie - thanks very much for sharing that prayer…I will be praying it tonight!

God bless you all.