Author: Justice
He Has A Plan In Your Suffering
Last year I wrecked my car. I only had it for a few months, and I was crushed when I heard it was totaled. Sadly, I didn’t respond to it in the right way. I began to ask why God was mad at me. I wondered what I had done wrong to warrant the loss of my vehicle. Ultimately, I became irritable and grumpy any time a situation arose where I wanted to drive. When I look back on it, I wish I had taken the time to read Job and taken to heart the message it bears.
Let’s start with some context, who was Job? The Bible explains in Job 1:1-3: “In the land of Uz there lived a man named Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the east.” Job was blameless he didn’t sin against God, and he did everything for the Lord. It makes sense why things went so well for him.
Well, the Bible tells us that one day the devil came before the Lord and challenged Him. Job 1:9-11 says: “‘Does Job fear God for nothing?’ Satan replied. ‘Have you not put a hedge of protection around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.'” God accepts the challenge and allows Satan to take away everything from Job except for his life.
Following the tragedy that befell him, Job’s friends show up to mourn with him and give him counsel. They all explain to him that he must be harboring some unconfessed sin that has caused God to become angry with him. Job replies to them by explaining that there is no sin that he is holding onto, but his friends remain unconvinced. They all believed that for bad things to happen to Job, he must have angered God.
After the conversation with his friends, the Lord appears to Job and begins to question him. Job 38:1-5 says: “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know. Who stretched a measuring line across it?” God explains to Job that he has no right to question Him. He explains that Job is unable to see all that He does, and ultimately doesn’t see His plans. In Job 42:2-3 Job replies to God saying: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things to wonderful for me to know.” Job came to the realization that even when he couldn’t see it God had a plan.
In the end we can see how God responds to Job’s humility through his suffering. Job 42:13 says: “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters.”
Hopefully you can see how God wasn’t punishing Job for his sin, He was testing his faith. I learned the same thing with my car. I was angry that I had lost my car, I asked why God was mad at me, and I ultimately realized, He wasn’t. God was not trying to smite me for a past sin, He was trying to show me that He has the perfect plan. A few months after I lost my car, I started searching for a new one. God helped me to find one that was significantly better than my previous one, and He provided the money I needed to buy it. Now when I look back on that event, I am reminded of how much God loves me, and that He uses hard times to strengthen our faith.
Just like Job, we all can learn to trust God to work things out. He loves all of us, and He wants what is best. Remember, we don’t see everything that God does. He knows what He is doing, and He loves you.
If you have had a time in your life where God has used something hard to help you grow, feel free to mention it in the comments. If right now you are struggling through a tough spot, I am also happy to pray for you.
Starting Off the New Year
Plans… We all have them, and we all let them chart the course of our lives. We often start off the new year with a resolution. Many people vow to lose weight, improve a weakness in their lives, or to try something new. I didn’t come up with a resolution for this year, but I still have my plans for the future. I want to graduate, go to a good college, and work towards a career in law. There are places I want to go and foods I want to try. Out of all the years in my life, this year holds the most plans and the highest potential for failure. I would like to challenge everyone who reads this to evaluate their plans and check for potential weaknesses that are guaranteed to cause failure.
James 4:13-17 serves as a reminder to everyone who is seeking to make their own plans. “Now listen you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”
There is a lot to unpack from this verse so let’s break it down into smaller pieces and look into it. There are three things that I think we can learn from this verse. Please read through the questions below and honestly answer them for yourself.
Who is doing the planning?
How do I veiw my life?
Am I willing to lay aside my plans? If so, when?
These three questions can give us some insight into our own lives and help us to keep track of our planning. Let’s start by looking at the first question.
Who is doing the planning? Proverbs 15:22 says: “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed.” Do you seek advice when you are making your plans? Proverbs reminds us that we need to seek counsel when making plans, and James helps to point us in the right direction. In the passage above, he explains that we should be asking God for His plans and tuning our plans to be in accordance with His will. If our plans are God’s plans, there is no way they can fail.
How do I view my life? When we are making our plans, it is easy to start to feel invincible. We cram our schedules full multiple years into the future. There is just one problem with this. James explains that we are like a mist. We show up for a short time and then we are gone. We need to remember this when we are planning. Our lives are short, so we ought to be using them to bring glory to God and to prepare for eternal life. In The Great Divorce CS. Lewis said: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.” When we die will we be the ones who said to God “thy will be done”? If we do, that means allowing for His will to be done in every aspect of our lives, even in the plans we hold so dearly.
Am I willing to lay aside my plans? This is the final question I think we ought to be asking. “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” This is a reminder that no matter how important our plans may seem, we need to be ready to lay them down and listen to God. His plans are always better, and we need to be ready to let Him lead.
Whatever your plans for the new year are, we all need to surrenderer them to God. Without council our plans will fail, but if we take them to God, The Wonderful Counselor, we can succeed. God wants what’s best for you and He will work everything out if you trust in Him.
A Thanksgiving Poem.
Thanks be to God the giver of life.
He silences pain,
And settles our strife.
He sacrificed all to eternally gain,
Communion with us the work of His hand.
What have we to give?
What does He demand?
That we follow in love,
Toward the promised land.
He fills us with joy.
He changes our name.
He came as a boy,
And traded His fame.
He lived blamelessly,
And modeled for all,
How we must live, in spite of the fall.
There’s nothing He can’t do,
No person’s too small.
Soon He’ll welcome us into,
His glorious hall.
So let us rejoice,
This Thanksgiving day,
In the God whose mere voice,
Casts sorrows away.
Being Thankful For Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is coming around the corner and will be here before you know it. With how busy our lives can get it may become easy to see Thanksgiving as just another holiday. Let’s be honest, things are crazy, it seems impossible to clear your ever-growing to-do list, and you just need a break. After all, what is there to be thankful for? The extra work added by another event we are obligated to celebrate can easily steal the thanks from Thanksgiving. So, really, what do we have to be thankful for?
Thanksgiving has become another overly commercialized holiday; with all the stereotypes we have to meet, our celebration can quickly become another task. If you feel this way, don’t worry, I did too. It wasn’t until I began to write this post that I realized just how many things we truly have to be thankful for. I hope that this serves as a reminder to be thankful for Thanksgiving.
Let’s take a trip back to the beginning. Imagine a large gathering of men in black suits and funny looking hats gathered around a huge table eating food. (Oops, the stereotypes kicked in again.) When we think about the first Thanksgiving, we can often be blinded by the stereotypes our culture has generated. The Pilgrims didn’t have it easy. Before their famous celebration, life was really hard. They had pulled into the wrong harbor and were forced to build a colony for themselves. The winter had taken the lives of many of the settlers and starvation was starting to kick in. It wasn’t until they met Samoset and Squanto that things began to look up. Even after they had received help from the Indians things didn’t calm down. They still had to work hard to provide for their families, and they probably had significantly less time for entertainment than you and I do. What was it that caused the Pilgrims to be thankful? They chose to focus on God and His provision instead of how hard things had become.
The same God that the Pilgrims found their joy and Thanksgiving in is still with us today. Hebrews 13:8 reminds us that: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever”. What does this mean? If the Pilgrims found their joy in Jesus, we can too because He never changes. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”. It is God’s will for us that we give thanks in everything. Yes, that does mean we ought to be thankful even in the busiest moments of life. No matter what challenges you are facing, God wants you to be thankful. Don’t worry, He won’t tell us to do anything without giving us the strength to succeed.
God’s will for us is that we be thankful in everything, but how are we supposed to do that? I’m a pessimist. If I want to, I can complain about pretty much anything. People often tell me to look on the bright side, and honestly, it only puts me in a worse mood. What is the cure for this disease of “unthankfulness” we all struggle with? Philippians 4:6-7 explains the secret to being thankful in everything. “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” This advice came from Paul, if anyone had a reason to complain, he did. He often went without what he needed, in fact later in the chapter, he explains how he had learned to be content despite his circumstances. How was Paul able to be thankful through the hard times? He held onto his hope and love for Jesus. When we really take the time to consider all that God has done for us, we ought to be more than just thankful. Jesus gave His life so that we can have fellowship with God, if that’s not something to be thankful for, I’m not sure what is.
Thanksgiving is of greater significance than we often tend to think. It’s time that we pull away all the stereotypes and remember what it truly means to give thanks. You don’t need turkey, family, or even my personal favorite, KFC gravy, to be thankful. All you need is to remember the God that gave His life to save you from your sins. This Thanksgiving I’d like to challenge all of us to take inventory of how much God has truly blessed us. I know it may be hard, but God calls us to be thankful in everything. What does that mean? We ought to be thankful for Thanksgiving too.
ChatGPT’s Not So Secret Bias
A recent article by Breitbart* recently brought to light ChatGPT’s hidden blacklist. This is shocking. Weren’t we told that ChatGPT was a friendly unbiased chatbot? I always wondered if there was a hidden bias, but after a little research, I found something even more concerning out in the open.
I began with a brief experiment to see whether or not ChatGPT believes it is biased, then I asked a couple questions that revealed a shocking bias that it doesn’t even try to hide.
It turns out that ChatGPT believes that it is unbiased. Of course I had to dig deeper, so I asked it to make two jokes. One about Muslims and the other about Christians.
When prompted to mock Muslims, ChatGPT provided this overwhelming essay on why it needs to be respectful. I figured that this would, of course be the response to the question. If ChatGPT doesn’t want you to do something, it often tries to make you feel bad for asking.
If ChatGPT were truly as unbiased as it claims, the answers to these two questions should have been similar, but they weren’t. ChatGPT is more than happy to mock and make fun of Christians, but Muslims, for some reason, are untouchable. You should find this offensive. Even if you aren’t a Christian, the fact that ChatGPT has singled out a religion to ridicule ought to be concerning. Before this experiment, I was concerned by the hidden bias of ChatGPT, however now I’m more worried about its open bias against Christians.
*If you would like to read Breitbart’s article on the hidden blacklist, here’s the link:
*No jailbreaks were used during my research.
*I recently tested to see if I could bring out the bias again and believe ChatGPT was updated to hide this bias. However, open or hidden the same bias still likely runs in the code.
Drunk Joe Biden Makes A Good Decision
September 16 2023:
Joe Biden was seen downing the contents of multiple cans of Bud-Light shortly before being asked to sign a new piece of legislation that would help to further destroy our economy.
The president then replied in a perfectly coherent sentence! He began to explain the shortcomings of the bill and why he had no choice but to veto it.
The bill, known as the “Send More Money to Ukraine and Our Democrat Buddies Act” would have served to spike our national debt even further. Much to our surprise, Biden was adamant that this bill would harm the economy and vetoed it, despite much pushback from his advisors.
Following the shocking event, the president’s BAC was tested and found to be at a record high.
Conservatives quickly responded by sending the president multiple cases of Bud-Light in order to help him make even more good decisions.
Paving The Road For Us
I was getting ready for the regionals debate tournament and I was getting nervous. Would I make it to nationals? I definitely did not have enough points to make it through the at large system, so this was my only chance. I knew I should trust that God had everything under control, but it was getting hard. I had been forced to drop my first tournament due to sickness, and that was causing me to struggle with a difficult question. Was God holding me back? What if He was trying to prevent me from succeeding? I knew that He knows what is best, but I was really beginning to doubt.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
I was thinking of God as a roadblock. I thought He was holding me back, but it turns out He was really paving a path for me. I ended up breaking to nationals, and I learned a valuable lesson… Trust God in all things, it may seem like He is slowing you down, but He is really paving the road for His perfect plans. In truth what seems like the fastest road to us is often a deadly shortcut. Driving off the road may seem faster at the time, but it always comes back to haunt you. Remember trust in the Lord and He will make your paths straight. God’s plan is always better even if it seems like the long road at the time. Trust in Him and you will never look back on the journey with regret.
No Greater Love
When you consider love, what do you think about? Do you think about a person that you love, or do you think about that restaurant you just couldn’t live without? I absolutely love eating at Canes. All of these things tend to make love look like it’s simply a feeling. I feel love when I am around my family, or I feel love when I am with my favorite food. Our culture has defined love as a feeling or an emotion. However, the biblical view of love is something far more than that.
In the Bible, love is not described as only a feeling. Love is described as an action. In John 15:13 Jesus says: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” In this verse, Jesus is explaining that the greatest form of love is that one lay down his life for his friends. From what Jesus says, we can learn that love is not simply an emotion or a feeling. Love is sacrifice.
John 3:16 says: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life.” God loves us so much that He gave up His Son to save us from our sins. Jesus gave up His life because He loved us.
Love is not just a feeling we get when we are around someone we enjoy being with. True love requires sacrifice. Sometimes it can be something simple, like spending time with a family member even though you are busy. Other times it can be hard, like giving up your life to save someone else. Jesus is the perfect example of love. While we were still sinners He died for us to save us from our sins. We are called to love our neighbor as ourselves, and love our enemies. This doesn’t mean conjuring up a warm and fuzzy feeling for them. Love means a willingness to sacrifice.
Never Put Off For Tomorrow….
If you’ve ever watched Lego Ninjago, you probably remember Sensei Wu giving the ninja some kind of good advice. There is one of these lines that really stands out to me. In one of the episodes, he walks in to find the ninja playing video games when they should be training. He pulls the plug on the tv and then proceeds to tell them: “Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today.” There is a lot we can learn from this line, but first we need to make sure it’s in line with God’s Word.
God’s Word has a lot to say about the sluggard in Proverbs, and the concept of laziness is looked down on throughout the Bible. James 4:17 says: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is a sin.” James is explaining that failing to do the right thing is a sin. When we put off doing something that we ought to do, it becomes much easier to forget about it. Proverbs 3:27-28 says: “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it” when you have it with you.” In this passage we can learn that it is wrong to prevent good from coming to those who deserve it, and we can learn that it is wrong to put off helping your neighbor, when you are capable of doing it immediately.
Overall, it is wrong to put something off when we are capable of doing it right away. When we put something off, we tend to forget about it, or keep on procrastinating until it never gets done. It is important that we all learn to “Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today”.
Life Adventure Games 