There will be good and there will be bad.

The minister that spoke in church yesterday had a chart of all of the rulers that ruled during bible time. It was color coded to show the degree of their righteousness versus their wickedness. You know what I learned? There were a whole bunch of extremely wicked rulers that ruled and it was all still part of God's overall plan.

I'm going to go back to my map analogy. You can not see the big picture. You will, in all your days, never see the big picture. God is the only one that can see what is going on. Now, hindsight is 20/20 and we can look back on biblical times and say Oh, I see why this had to happen or how cool is it that this happened in order for God's plan to work out.

You know what? I bet the people that lived under that evil evil ruler sure didn't think it was neat. I am quite sure that their perspective or take on the situation that they actually lived through would be much different if you could speak to them one on one.

Why is it that we are so close minded to think that our perspective is the only valid authority? God is bigger than we are, he is better than we are and he is much more loving than we could ever even attempt to be.

You might be dealing with evil, you might be dealing with sadness, you might be dealing with struggles that no one else understands. I urge you to hold fast to God. If you don't know him. Seek him out. God is loving and understanding and he wants you to come to know him. Humans are flawed and can never be the perfection that is Christ. Do not assume that because you have burned by someone that calls themselves a Christian that this is what Christianity is.

Look at it this way. Let's say there is a fireworks display and you are trying to find out about the purpose for it and the ins and outs of it and generally everything you can find out about it but the first person you ask hates fireworks. Are you going to base your entire impression of fireworks on that person? If you do then you have missed the excitement of how it works, the beauty of the display and the understanding of fireworks as a whole.

Do not allow your opinion about anything be based on one bad experience. It is a big world and there will be good and there will be evil. Be strong and show love my friends. We are all in this together.