Life's Curve Balls

When I was in high school and playing baseball, one thing I struggled with was hitting a curve ball. This skill is usually what keeps young athletes from moving on to college baseball and college baseball players from moving on to the pros. But, when I came up against a pitcher who was throwing curves, I would often move up in the batter’s box (closer to the pitcher) and choke up on the bat. By moving closer I was attempting to try and hit the ball before it actually curved. While this didn't always work I found I was more succesful than just waiting on the ball to break and reacting.

Many people are being thrown curves by life and they aren’t sure how to handle it. I know someone who is having a particularly difficult time, and it has left him feeling that God is vindictive and punishing him. He has been unemployed for over a year and there are no prospects in sight. His health has deteriorated to a point where he says he has prayed his heart would stop.

There are others who wonder if there is a God at all. They see little children coming down with horrible diseases or a father of two being killed while he sits at his desk one Tuesday morning and some evil people fly an airplane into his office building. “If there is a God, how could he allow these things to happen?” they ask.

I used to be in that place. I remember a night in November 1996 when the woman I loved told me she didn't love me and was leaving me. My world crashed in around me, the plan for my life had just changed.

The good news is there is a God, and he isn’t a punishing or vindictive God but a loving God. He is our Heavenly Father and now that I am a parent I understand so much more about how God works. He wants the very best for all of us, but sometimes the road of life is a little rocky, and instead of shielding us from everything, he lets us learn from choices we make and from events that we have no control over.

God gave each of us free will to make our own choices. He didn’t create a bunch of robots. In many, many cases, the problems people suffer are not hard to explain. People have problems because they have made some poor choices in their life. Take the example of a man who loses his job and marriage because he had affair with an employee. Is God to blame for the consequences? What about the person who wrecks his car because he drove while being intoxicated? Is God punishing him or being vengeful? No, these individuals are just suffering the consequences of their choices.

There are things that we will never understand, but God has a plan. If one assumes there isn’t a God then one must assume or believe that everything in the world occurs at random. Because if it weren’t random then that would mean someone is in control and planning it all out.

But, look around. Is what you see a culmination of random events? I don’t understand how anyone could believe that. Things that happen in Random are not generally beautiful. Go grab some leaves and flower petals and roll them in glue and stick them to a sheet of paper. Now, how does what you see compare to a vast field of Bluebonnets in Texas? It doesn’t compare because the field of Bluebonnets was carefully planned and created by our God.

Our God is a God who is in control and has a plan for each of us. That plan may not always be clear or even seem to make sense but there will come a day when it does. Our job while we are here on this earth is to be obedient.

One reason so many people don’t understand life is because they haven’t read the Bible, God’s Word to us. The Bible is a book of letters written by a variety of different authors. These writers were witnesses to God’s miracles and lived through more difficult times than people I know. Ninety percent (90%) of what we need to know about living on this earth is in there. One hundred percent (100%) of what we need to know about what happens when we die is in there.

So, instead of sitting back in life and waiting for the pitch to break so you can swing and miss, step up in the batter’s box and try to hit it before it curves.