Remembering

Exodus 4:11 NIV “The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord?”

It is easy to think that when something good happens, it is God blessing us, and when something bad happens, it is the Devil cursing us.  But if you read carefully, throughout the Bible, we see passages like this one, saying that it is God who brings bad things into our lives.  Why would he do such a thing?  

Job and his wife had this exchange in chapter 2, “His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

In my journey of faith, I remember coming to this idea some years ago and the revelation that if these difficulties, challenges and trials are from God, they must not be bad things, but blessings!  If God is omnipotent (and omniscient), then every event in history must either be by His Will or His allowance.  And therefore, every event that ever will happen in the future is also according to His Plan.  

Are you or your loved one afflicted with some disease?  I’m sure all of us have prayed repeatedly for the health of someone who did not recover.  The question before each of us is, what then?  Will we, like a young CS Lewis, determine that there is no God?  Or will we be like the Psalmists who continued to cry out again and again, “how long, Lord?”  

I have written before of my journey through that day and the aftermath, 24 years and three days ago.  I don’t want to overstate my difficulties.  I did not contract any diseases, as many did who were there, or who responded in the aftermath.  I only know one person who died that day.  But it did shake my faith in God and in humanity.  As I got through it and could look back on it some years later, I realized that my career in reinsurance took off as a direct result of those 3,000 deaths.  That is a humbling thought.  

Did God cause those planes to hit?  Of course not!  He limits his omnipotence to allow for our Free Will.  No one forced those men to steer those planes that day.  Did God set all this up for me to benefit?  That is absurdly ridiculous.  But God is indeed omnipotent.  I believe he did want me to have a front row seat that day.  It was just over 5 weeks before that my office in Morristown closed and I was transferred to 195 Broadway, right next to the Millennial Hotel, which received direct damage from the planes and falling towers.  I watched the second plane hit and felt the heat of the flames that shot right at me.  It is safe to say that if I had been watching safely from Morristown, I would not have the same view of that day that I do now.

This, I believe, is how God weaves the tapestry of each of our histories.  I do not, and cannot rejoice in these events (despite Philippians 4:4), but I can be grateful for the blessings I have received from them.  And I can work to see that I help those affected more directly and permanently by that day.