Why does God allow this that or the other to happen? It's a question that Christians are asked all the time. It's maybe even a question that Christians ask themselves from time to time. Generally, we answer that God allows Satan to do such and such because the day of judgment hasn't yet arrived or something along those lines, but I wonder if that isn't shortchanging God. We try pretty hard to put a friendly face on God and to make Him out as something kind and gentle, but that's not really Biblical.
God disciplines us, and sometimes things that we perceive as bad are the evidence of that discipline. I'm not saying that anything specific happened to you because God was disciplining you. I'm saying that it might have. It might have just been Satan messing with you like he did with Job. The challenge of this chapter is to really search deep and ask yourself if whatever happened is God's discipline, and ask yourself what you are going to learn from it. Either way, you've got to be sure that God gets the glory.
Whenever you identify that God is disciplining you, be grateful. Parents only discipline their own children. They tend to allow each parent to discipline their own and they try to stay out of each other's way. So, when you realize that God is disciplining you, then you should also realize that that makes Him your parent. And as your parent, He is not unapproachable. The last part of the chapter compares us with the Israelites in the desert, and while they were not allowed to even touch the mountain when God was meeting with Moses, we are encouraged to enter the presence of God. How then, can you not be grateful when the disciplines and the trials of life remind you that you are being disciplined and tested because you are a child of the Most High God?
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