God's Will

It's Sunday and we just had a fabulous week of visiting the grand canyon (which really is grand!) and getting the backyard landscaped (I'll post pictures soon. It's really looking good). Church was uplifting and I just took a 2 hour nap which was fantastic and now I'm in a good mood that I can write something which I have a really hard time with and may be offensive to many, but I can write it without feeling negative--that's the kind of good mood I'm in. I've also decided that on Sundays I'm going to try to put in a spiritual thought (which may be surprising after my previous sentences, yes my "issue" is of spiritual matter). So . . . here it goes:

I can't stand it when people (even when the scriptures) imply that all things, including really bad and hard things are specific to our needs and are sent to us by God. "I need to accept God's will that _____" drives me crazy! The idea that God intentionally sends us such blanks as a child dying, a friend getting cancer, breaking my leg, stubbing my toe (at what point is it God's will? It seems that only major bad things are what I hear people say, but why not something bad like breaking a nail?) That God sends us such trials makes Him sound kind of sadistic. Saying that we need to accept God's will--the trials he gives me--is a lazy and stupid way of giving meaning to the really bad crap that happens on his earth.

Here is what I believe that is not at issue but could by intepreted to support the wrong claim that God wills us our trials:
^We are here on a fallen earth and we have been given agency, which was in itself designed by God. The direct consequence of this is that really bad things can happen.
^God loves us and knows us and has a plan for us which includes trials
^Bad things can in the end help or teach us (if we allow it--which is a HUGE condition, I'd argue that most people including myself often don't allow it to, rather are angry or full of self pity or simply refuse to rise above).

I cannot accept that God directly wills us tailored trials. (Nor that trials are sent as a consequence to sin, which most people don't believe but I used to think was true). The scripture that "these things are for your good" is not the same thing as "I have sent these things to you so you'll cowboy up." The idea of using trials to increase our faith and relationship is fabulous, even ingenious but in my mind does not connote that awful things are a gift from God or his direct will. All things that are good are of God . . . including the good that comes from our turning away from the bad, from looking up when we feel so down, reaching for help when we are trudging through the mud of this fallen earth. The mud, the bad, even the evil is natural to the earth, not tailored to the man. Our choices, and the Godlike character that we seek wants to turn away from the natural, to seek God even from the depth of evil, hardship, and trial. It would be so healthy, responsible and even God like to replace the notion of accepting our trials as God's will to the idea that in my trials I will look to God. I will allow these trials to increase my faith and trust. I will have greater humility, greater faith, greater confidence in my faith (which may be the same thing but in my mind it has enough of it's own category to separate it), a stronger relationship with God because I am much more prayerful and yearning. The meaning to our trials is not a passive acceptance of God's will, but our seeking God in the process.