I've heard people talking about how God didn’t answer the prayers of the parents of the nine million children who die each year. However, I believe that such thinking could be said to be shortsighted. For instance, let's look at the case of little five year old Jimmy who fell prey to some terrible disease that caused him to bite the dust. And now you want to know why God didn’t answer his parents’ prayers for his recovery. Well, little did you know what God knew.
What God knew was that little Jimmy would have grown up to have a little farm on which he would have raised geese. God knew that one Sunday one of his geese--the really mean one--would get loose. And as it so happens, a Sunday School bus carrying thirty-four children would be passing by Jimmy’s farm. The bus’s air conditioner isn’t working, and, being an especially hot day, the driver would have her side-window wide open. When the bus stops at an intersection in front of grown-up Jimmy’s farm, the goose would see the bus as some kind of a threat to her newly hatched goslings, and as the bus is gaining speed after leaving the intersection, the goose would fly into the open window and go at the driver. The driver would inadvertently hit the gas pedal, and before you can say WTF--or more appropriately in this case, OMG--the bus would smash into a bridge abutment, burst into flames, and kill twenty-seven of the children, and terribly disfigure the rest of them.
The future grown up Jimmy would hear the crash and then run to the scene. Having been thrown right through the windshield, the goose and driver are lying in the ditch, both dead. Jimmy recognizes his goose, and, smelling a lawsuit, or worse, grabs the goose and runs farther down the road and throws it into the water-filled ditch. He finds a rock and places it on the dead goose’s body. Suddenly the final scene in the movie “Deliverance” pops into his head, and he quickly finds another, way bigger rock and puts it on the dead goose under the water. Then he runs back to his house and calls the police about the wreck.
Anyway, just because you can’t see the bigger picture doesn’t mean God can’t. The life of young Jimmy versus the lives of thirty-four Christians fourteen years later. And Jimmy wasn’t even a Christian! For God, it was a no-brainer; Jimmy had to go. As an aside, just before the bus tragedy that would have happened, that same goose would have gotten loose before the church bus incident and flog an innocent kitten to death (I said it was mean). It so happens that that kitten would have grown up to kill the rat that carried the disease that devastated the whole community . . . including Christian children!! But God, being all-knowing, allowed for Jimmy’s demise, which prevented the goose, which prevented the bus accident, and the kitten lived to kill the rat, which prevented the disease. So . . .
What God knew was that little Jimmy would have grown up to have a little farm on which he would have raised geese. God knew that one Sunday one of his geese--the really mean one--would get loose. And as it so happens, a Sunday School bus carrying thirty-four children would be passing by Jimmy’s farm. The bus’s air conditioner isn’t working, and, being an especially hot day, the driver would have her side-window wide open. When the bus stops at an intersection in front of grown-up Jimmy’s farm, the goose would see the bus as some kind of a threat to her newly hatched goslings, and as the bus is gaining speed after leaving the intersection, the goose would fly into the open window and go at the driver. The driver would inadvertently hit the gas pedal, and before you can say WTF--or more appropriately in this case, OMG--the bus would smash into a bridge abutment, burst into flames, and kill twenty-seven of the children, and terribly disfigure the rest of them.
The future grown up Jimmy would hear the crash and then run to the scene. Having been thrown right through the windshield, the goose and driver are lying in the ditch, both dead. Jimmy recognizes his goose, and, smelling a lawsuit, or worse, grabs the goose and runs farther down the road and throws it into the water-filled ditch. He finds a rock and places it on the dead goose’s body. Suddenly the final scene in the movie “Deliverance” pops into his head, and he quickly finds another, way bigger rock and puts it on the dead goose under the water. Then he runs back to his house and calls the police about the wreck.
Anyway, just because you can’t see the bigger picture doesn’t mean God can’t. The life of young Jimmy versus the lives of thirty-four Christians fourteen years later. And Jimmy wasn’t even a Christian! For God, it was a no-brainer; Jimmy had to go. As an aside, just before the bus tragedy that would have happened, that same goose would have gotten loose before the church bus incident and flog an innocent kitten to death (I said it was mean). It so happens that that kitten would have grown up to kill the rat that carried the disease that devastated the whole community . . . including Christian children!! But God, being all-knowing, allowed for Jimmy’s demise, which prevented the goose, which prevented the bus accident, and the kitten lived to kill the rat, which prevented the disease. So . . .
