Not How It's Meant to Be

This isn't how it was supposed to be.  This world is broken and full of evil, and this isn't how it was supposed to be.  Love is abused, the good and the young die painful deaths, and sex is used to manipulate and hurt.  Where is God in all of this?

My roommate and I were discussing one of our Humanities Core classes that deals with worldviews and difficult topics of our time such as abortion and euthanasia, and our conversation strayed to why the world contains so much evil inside of things that were designed to be good, specifically when it came to sex.  I asked her if she thought that there was sex before the Fall of Man, and we agreed that there was, because man was designed to reproduce from the start and we cited Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:24-25 "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.  Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."  We had the realization that though in our post-Fall society sex is often abused and sinful it wasn't designed to be that way.  I said "this isn't how it was supposed to be" and all of a sudden so many things clicked into place for me.

God created life to be beautiful, He wanted man to live in perfect harmony with Himself, one another, and the rest of creation.  But Satan in the form of the serpent stepped in and altered that order, causing evil to enter the world.  God never intended for the world to be this way.  The story of man since Genesis 3:8 has been God's work to redeem us.  He loves us and doesn't want to see us hurt, but we constantly hurt ourselves, and just by nature of living in a fallen world evil is part of our lives and is part of who we are.  That is, it is a part of who we are except for God's Redeeming Grace through Jesus Christ.

God  can use the evil in the world for His purposes, to help us to grow and to guide us to Him, but He did not cause this evil.  Man in conjunction with Satan brought this evil into the world, and then our free will continues to let it intertwine with our lives.  God's heart breaks when we are in unnecessary pain caused by the evil that He did not bring into the world.  Good things are made bad because this world is not how it was supposed to be.  This was not the original plan.  This isn't how it's supposed to be.

When we pass on from this life and enter into Heaven by God's Grace we will see how the world was meant to be.  We will meet with utter perfection.  For now, though, God has a purpose for each one of us in this fallen world in order to guide as many of us as will accept His redeeming salvation into Paradise, into the Heaven that God intended.

The Devil Can't Hurt Me

There are some days when I just want to give up hope. I just want to quit, because no matter how hard I try, it seems like I'm not good enough. And it becomes difficult to remember why I still have hope at all.

So I ask God, and that alone helps. Knowing that whatever happens, God is always listening, always caring, always loving. It helps so much more than I would've ever guessed a single thing could.

One specific night, I remember crying so badly, and I just didn't know what was happening. There was only so much I could do. I whispered to myself "God has a plan for you, God loves you" over and over again. Then that devil creeped up on my again, and screamed to my brain "There is no plan for you, you aren't important at all". I told him he was wrong. I'm here for a purpose, and I know it's true, even when it's hard to see, even when I am so lost and have no idea what step is next.

The song "Concrete Angel" then began to play on my Pandora account, and I saw why God wants me. God put me on this earth for a reason, He put us all on this earth for a reason. I have so many blessings, and I know that I could help people so much if I really tried. Maybe that's not God's entire plan for me, I don't know what He has in mind for my life, but I know that that's part of it. As long as there's still suffering in the world, I still have a purpose for being here.

The devil can't hurt me with the things that he says to me when I choose to listen to the one and only true God.