Since we're so right

[LilyM]

It also rains on athiest farmers. Just sayin’

That’s biblical :yup: - God ‘makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike’. But more on the just, I reckon - the unjust are more likely to steal their umbrellas

 

[GraceDK]

Maybe the Methodists are really more just than the Catholics in this town?.. Could it possibly be? Could we possibly not try to explain the experience away, that God hears the prayers and provides our Evangelical brothers with miracles while we are sometimes walking through a drought… a drought not always brought about by the Holy Spirit, as we tend to say, but maybe brought about by our own disbelief too often?

Self scrutiny is always good.

 

[JKing]

I always go back to a paragraph I read a long time ago by St. Maximilian Kolbe that has become the cornerstone of my life.

And if even for a moment we were endowed with infinite intelligence and understood the cause and effect of everything, we would not choose for ourselves anything other than that which God allows, for He is infinitely wise and knows best. He wills and permits only that which will serve our greater happiness in heaven." ~St. Maximilian Kolbe, Will to Love, p10.

In a nutshell If we knew all that God knows, we would not wish anything different than what God gives us. When we finally understand the reasons for all our sufferings we will be so grateful!

J

 

[Mintaka]

St. John of the Cross somewhere notes that people who are new to the spiritual life, or whose spiritual life is shallow, often have more prayers answered for consolations or material goods. This is like “mother’s milk” – easily digestible, nourishing, and encouraging the child to grow and thrive. Or it’s like fertilizer for a new sapling, encouraging it to put down roots before the dry season comes. Once they’ve learned that God is good, they can develop the sort of faith that will lead them through hard times. Then God can start to strengthen them through adversity, like grownups.

St. Thomas More went further – he was deeply mistrustful of a happy life without adversity. (Probably remembering his own meteoric career, before he disagreed with Henry VIII.) He says that anybody whose prayers are always answered and who always receives material goods should be fearful for the state of his own immortal soul – because that’s the best God can give a really sinful and worldly person. Somebody who’s not beyond hope gets the bad stuff to shape them up. So he felt that anybody who was “lucky” should start fasting and begging for mercy right away!

You can see why these guys aren’t televangelists.

I don’t want anybody to take this too far. But really, the reasons God hands out goodies to one person and hard knocks to another are not anything easily comprehensible by human beings. God has an eye on eternal life for us; He will do whatever is best for us. Our job is to be grateful for whatever He gives us, including and especially the hard knocks, which are much more like Jesus’ life than the goodies. However, if we do get goodies, we can assume that God wants us to accept and use those goodies to His glory and to help others.

So just say thank you, and don’t look His gifts in the mouth or the way He gives them. Like the Israelites who didn’t show up for Moses’ meeting who prophesied anyway, or the people who did miracles in Jesus’ name before being baptized, God sometimes distributes His graces “in the wild”. This should make us rejoice in His boundless generosity, not make us mad or make us assume that we should disrespect the usual channels He set up to give us grace. Just say thank you. Don’t worry about the rest.