it is so hard for me to say "blessed be the name of the LORD" right now, as Job did in chapter 1.

how he even managed to do so, and not blame God for all his problems as seen in chapter 2, i will never know.

i'm not saying i'm in a position where i want to curse God; i just find it so hard to say "everything's great" right now. because, isn't that what saying "blessed be the name of the LORD" basically is?

the bible is quite strange sometimes; when something bad happens to us, that is our own fault to blame. when something good happens to us, it is all of God's doing.

we know that God has his purpose with all of us, to prosper us and not to harm us, as stated in Jeremiah 29; and if he sees we're not going with his plan, he pushes us the other way, even when he knows it'll just crush us emotionally inside, knowing the best for us. BUT IT'S JUST SO HARD TO SEE WHAT HE'S TRYING TO DO.

i think i know why sometimes we feel like it would be easier to follow God back then. the way the educational system and modern-day society works, is like a long, logical chain.

elementary school -> jr high -> high school -> college -> grad school -> career -> marriage -> some more career -> kids -> death

and when something goes wrong part of the way in that supposed chain, like bad grades in college, or impending bad grades in college, that chain appears to collapse. life's over. we're done.

10 years are but a second in the eyes of the LORD. but to us, it seems like eternity, especially if you feel helpless.

i guess the reason why i'm writing all this down, is because i believe in fate. i've read enough of the bible to get this sense that God really has known everything that will happen before this world will end. to somehow believe that we have free will to do what we want and that God's just occasionally stepping in or stepping back is wrong. look at it this way; God predicted what will happen to the world when it comes to an end in specific detail in Revelations. to suggest free will is more prevalent means that these people that are talked about can just try to not do what is said and it won't come to pass. to suggest that God can only predict the end times and not everything that will occur in between now and then is rubbish; it was only not written down because there was no need to.

that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to DO things. animals try to do stuff too. but it is more God than us.

what God wants us to do though, is not get caught up in the things of this world. it can feel extremely hard in tough times. but we need to see that God intends to do something useful with our lives, and never intends to give us more than we can handle. it is by the realization of this assurance in Jeremiah 29 that we can say with firmality, "blessed be the name of the LORD."