After I wrote the previous post I was thinking about some stuff that somehow tied together. The question, "why do bad things happen to good people?" came up. The only explanation for this that I can come up with is that since God is an impartial God, showing unconditional love, giving consistent favor to some and consistent disfavor to others would be evidence of very conditional love. God loves both those who do and do not follow Him, and the fact that good and bad things happen to both sets of people confirms His unconditional love.
Now, how are people that follow God supposed to handle bad things happening to them? The response I alluded to in my previous post is that we are to understand that God is working out His purpose and we should submit to His will and recognize that He is doing something through it.
This leads me to the topic of blessings. For a while now I've believed that "blessings" are not something God gives to us to make us happy, i.e., a bigger house, more money, nicer car, etc. Along with blessings come the responsibility to use those blessings to further His kingdom. The idea I've had up to this point is if I get a raise, for example, God has blessed me with extra finances to use for Him. But what about bad situations? What if we come down with a disease that takes years to fight off? What if we lose a loved one? What if our finances are taken away? By going through these experiences, we gain knowledge and insight into how to deal with these situations. I believe that these are blessings. God has given us experience, knowledge, and wisdom by going through these things, so we now have the responsibility to share it, to sympathize with others, and show God's love and compassion.
None of that really links up but that's how He showed it to me.
