20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?'”
How many of us during our teen years ask the question of God, “Why did you make me like this?” That is one of the age old questions asked universally. From an earthly perspective the choices seem arbitrary at times. The individual struggling with a chronic illness, the accident victim, the one born in abject poverty, the cry goes out. And little personal comfort comes from knowing that somehow this fits into God’s plan, that if we trust God, something eternal will be made out of the temporal. Our few short years locked in the temporal will someday seem like a blink, like a distant memory, a fading dream. One of the secrets of water skiing is keeping your eyes focused out on the horizon. If we focus on the water right under our feet, we fall. When we learn to drive a car we learn to look down the road, around the next bend in the road. If we focus on what is immediately in front of our bumper, we get in accidents. The walk of trust in God is the same. The longer our perspective is, the smoother our ride, the steadier our course. Eternity can seem a long way off when we are suffering, but the way to make it through is to keep our eyes and hearts fixed on eternity.
The Arnold Journey 