Sometimes We Do Not Like God's Direction

For the last three days I have been with my wife's family.  It is my in law's 90th birthday.  Family on my wife's side is coming in from all over the country.  All of my kids and their children are here.  It is a big deal.

My father in law has had a full life.  He has a compassionate heart.  My wife and I think that he has the gift of giving.  He and I were talking yesterday afternoon.  The subject was his second son.  He is 46 and has down syndrome.  When he graduated from high school my father in law started a sheltered workshop.  That was over 25 years ago.  My brother in law still works there 4 days a week.  He is no longer able to do much but he can go there as long as he is able.

In the conversation we were talking about the reality that God does all for a purpose.  My father in law mentioned that he wondered what the purpose was for his son to have down syndrome.  I suggested that all of the families that have been helped by that workshop in the last 25 years might be an answer.  He said that it would have been easier if God had just told him to build the workshop.  He's right.  It would have been.  But in my experience and in what I read in the Bible that is not the way God seems to work.

I certainly would rather God tell me some things rather than take me through the experiences He has to teach me.  I am probably too stubborn, or too deaf to hear.  So He directs my life to teach me what He wants me to learn and to lead me to do what He has designed me to do.

Like my father in law, I am not always a big fan of the process, but then I am not God.