By chance or by will?

I have heard many people say “You were lucky” when they hear something good happened to you. Or when something goes bad, they think you are in need of it because you probably have some kind of a bad influence that doesn’t allow you to get ahead in your life, or that sets you back. Like I said before, in Christ’s times people used to think that, but Jesus set them straight saying that it all happens so the glory of God is demonstrated. That is how we know that things do not happen due to sin or by Chance.

 When I was young I remember seeing those movies of the Greek gods who treated the people like players of some kind of table game and gave special power to the principal figure, sending help from above, like a giant bird to rescue him from trouble. I used to think if the gods played like that with our lives when they got together to put order in them, we had to be likeable to them. Well, I have realized, studying the Bible, that God created us to His image (Genesis 1.27) and gave us free will (Genesis 3.6) to do as we please, but if we love Him, (and if we really do we can not deceive Him) everything will work for our good, no matter how bad it may look. (Romans 8.28) So he will not play with us as if we were Chess pawns. He loved us so that He became one of us to get to interact with us, to know us well and help us get saved. That is if we so desire.

Everything happens for a reason that obeys the will of God which is great for us who believe in Him. That has been proven time after time. Many Christians could testify of it. I can tell you what recently happened to us: My husband and I were holding plane tickets we had to use before September. We had been postponing the trip due to the health of my mother in law and other reasons of her care. The day before we had finally planned to leave, she passed away, releasing the caring family member to deal alone with the problem, releasing us from losing time and money, releasing her from anymore suffering. We called our "birth" country and ALL of her relatives had gathered for a vacation reunion so they all found out at once to comfort each other. Do you really believe that was luck, taking into consideration we belong to God’s family? And for a person who could NOT move at all, how could she reach up to hold whoever came for her soul? Was that a coincidence too?

We believe that nothing happens by luck but by the will of God. Though there is a great deal of verses to prove this, there is one that says exactly the truth of it all as we know it, for He is sovereign to do as He pleases because of his grace: The Lord said: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on GOD who has mercy. (Romans 9.15-16)

And His mercy endures forever.