Last night we made a trip to the store, and Max was going crazy in the store. No matter how many times I asked him to calm down and just walk, he just kept running and dancing around.
After a while of this I told him that he had lost his Pokemon cards for the next week, and if he kept it up he would lose them for another week.
As often happens when I punish Max, he quickly turns from happy to say that we don't like him because we're punishing him or he tries to blame his sister. Some how he can always find some way to try and blame her no matter what he's done.
This morning I was reading in Jefferson Bethke's book Jesus>Religion, and came to a section on suffering and how we react to God when we suffer. He talks about how none of us can know the reasons for our suffering and pain, it is not because God doesn't love and care for us.
I realized that we often act the same way as Max towards God when we suffer. Rather than seeing that God is right beside us suffering and crying with us, we yell at Him and blame Him or others for what is happening.
Most of the time there is no reason we have to suffer. But the good news is that God can and does use our pain and suffering to teach us things and to bring us closer to Him.
The amazing thing about God, is that we can also scream at Him and ask Him why, and, while we may not get an answer in this life, He can take it.
That's one of the reasons I love the Psalms so much. In it you can see David cry out to God, yell at God, and bicker with God. But at the end of the day David would still realize that God loves him no matter what happens to him.
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