"Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked? When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future."
A beloved man from my church died this weekend. He left behind a wife and five children. The whole church is reeling. It left many of us wondering - with so many men out there who are hurting and abandoning their families, why would God take a good man who loved his wife and children?
The inevitable conclusion is that we just aren't privy to that information. But, we still question why. I heard it said once that our lives are like a beautiful tapestry. But, while we are on earth God only allows us to see the back of it. I don't know if you've ever seen the back of a tapestry, but it is a mess of strings and the picture is pretty unrecognizable. It isn't until we get to heaven that we have the perspective to see the beauty of the picture. Maybe then we will gain some understanding of the things in life that seem so unfair, that seem to have no good purpose, to the pain that people suffer.
I think the answer is simply this: God has a perspective that we cannot possibly fathom. He sees the past, present and even the future with perfect clarity. He is never perplexed. He is never surprised. He never makes a mistake. He never thinks, "oh no, what am I going to do now?"
So, we can have faith, even through the hard, yucky times. God is working beautiful things in and through our lives. And someday, for those of us who are obedient to God's word, we will be done with the pain and sorrow and tears. Maybe then we will see things a bit more from God's perspective. In heaven we may understand all of this, but I suspect that at that point none of it will seem nearly as important.
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