God does not own shares in gold mines

Why did this happen to me? That is a logical question that sooner or later is asked by any person involved in any form of trauma or illness.

So what is the answer? I believe that in reality there isn’t one. The truth is that ‘bad things happen to good people’ just as much as ‘bad things happen to bad people’ and so too do ‘good things happen to good people’ and good things happen to bad people’. When a person wins the lottery do you ever here them saying “Oh no, why did this happen to me”. Things happen: period! Some people are rich, some people are poor. Some people sail through life healthy, some people suffer trauma and illness. To sum it all up, it’s called Life. Life is not about what has happened to us; it’s about what we do with whatever happens to us.

Following closely on the footsteps of ‘why did this happen to me’ comes the almighty blame game of ‘why did God allow this to happen’. When you type that question into Google, you will be amazed at the millions of different versions of so called answers to this question. Atheists use it to support their notions of no God and Christians search the bible for incidents that took place during biblical times that they feel could justify the reasons or answers to this question. I am a man who believes in a little thing called logic. I am so often stunned at how people are unable to apply logic to so many things in life.

Why are so many people looking at God and the bible to find out why something happened? Why, in times like this does the bible become a recipe book as opposed to a book of life? If you win the lotto, do you go look for the ‘recipe’ of success in the bible? I imagine God sitting and shaking his head in despair every time this happens and thinking “oh no I am again being crucified for other people’s sins”. How would I feel if a team of medical investigators entered my house and said that they are here to investigate me as the father to find out if I caused my child’s cancer? Exactly! So how does God, as a Father, feel every time this happens?

My logic dictates that God does not have the time or the need to wake up one day and decide that a 17 year girl should get cancer. Neither do I believe in the notion that He lets or allows bad things to happen to people because He has a future plan for that person. That is like saying that people like Lance Armstrong got cancer so that he could later write a book and become an icon to millions of other cancer patients. Lance Armstrong like Kirstin got cancer because its one of those unfortunate things that happen in life. Lance had an option to either make the best of a bad situation or sit back and feel sorry for himself. He had the option of using his bad experience to help others or to just live in self pity and bitterness. As much as there are bad sides to life so too are there many opportunities for good.

That’s all good and well but human nature dictates that somebody must be to blame, someone must take responsibility, we as humans are so scared that if we cant blame somebody else then we will have to seek blame in ourselves and that is just not going to happen because why on earth would we want to blame ourselves when we can blame others.

I work with explosives and believe you me they are the most awesome toys that a man child can play with. They are spectacular to watch and they wield immense power. Just as they are imperative tools in industry so too are they deadly tools of destruction pain and suffering. When a criminal or terrorist bombing, like Oklahoma City, takes place you will inevitably see victims crying out to God asking why this happened. Why are they asking God? Why are they associating God with such an incident? The truth is that they should be crying out to the Chinese and asking the Chinese why this happened. That’s right; it’s the Chinese that invented explosives. Explosives are used to access precious minerals like gold and we want gold because it is money and we are greedy and the more money we want, the more gold we must mine and to mine more gold we need more explosives and the more explosives we make the easier it becomes for them to end up in the wrong hands. God has no shares in the mining industry and God does not need or want gold or money so it is safe to say that God does not need, want or have any interest in explosives. So why does He get questioned when explosives cause pain and suffering?

In Krugersdorp acid water is posing a serious health risk to thousands of people. In time people will succumb to the effects and suffer and many of those people will look to God for the reason when the reason is already known to be an over mined environment that was not protected and looked after. Yes the mining industry is to blame but so too are we. We benefit from that mining, we support mining and we love the jewellery that those mines give us. We will criticize the mines while we show off our latest gold and diamond jewellery.

So who is to blame for Kirstin’s cancer? In essence we all are, every single one of us because for every action there are consequences, for everything we have created to make our lives easier there is a downside. We cannot live without cars and chemicals but they are some of the deadliest tools known to mankind. No I am not becoming one of these ‘save the earth, hug a tree bunnies’, I am a realist who accepts that I can’t change the fact that my child has cancer but I am also not going to blame someone specific for our misfortune.

In summary God is a Father and we can liken this to a father who gives his son a farm. The son trashes the land and destroys it and so too does his son and so too does his son. Then down the line a great great grandson farms the land and finds that his crops all die. He originally prayed that God would bless his land and now is angry because God did not give him the crop that he planned for. So he blames God and does not stop to realise that God is not a magician. It’s sad that so many religions give the idea that God is some kind of magician that waves magic wands. God is a father and treats people like that. I don’t allow my father to come into my house and dictate how I should live so being the lovingly father he accepts that and lets me carry on. Like God, my father waits patiently till I ask for help and then gives the help he can. He does not come in with a magic wand and with one wave fix all the mess ups I have made. He comes in to stand by me and guide me through the journey of repairing the damage. So the farmer cant say a prayer and expect a bumper crop to grow, he needs to ask God to stand by him through the hardship of repairing the damage that has been done so that together they will see the day that a bumper crop grows.

So no, I don’t blame God for Kirstin’s cancer and neither do I pray for miracles even though I would give my life for one. I pray for support and guidance, I pray for His guidance of the doctor’s hands and minds and for His guidance of the drugs chosen and administered. And no, I am not about to go and join the ‘save the earth’ groups because I believe that most of the damage that we have done to our Fathers farm cannot be repaired. I will rather show my support to the scientific and medical world to cure and eradicate the consequences of our life styles. After all, I believe that God has not merely sat back and watched us trash the earth, He has allowed us to do it at our own free will, but at the same time He has been giving people the mental capacity to find ways to rectify or alleviate our mistakes.