It happens.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

I'm on my second cup of coffee this morning and it isn't even 8 am yet. I got up early and let the dogs out. No rain yet. So I get dressed for a walk and just as I'm about to leash my dogs and go I discovered it was raining. I should have known better. It is the weekend of the Tri-State Music Festival after all. In Enid, that means guaranteed rain. So I go back into the house with two brokenhearted dogs, took a shower and had some coffee.

I think this is the point where if I were reacting like certain segments of the population think I should, I would blame God for foiling my workout and get all pissy.
I have, however, long ago given up on the idea that the Lord of all creation makes weather plans based on whether or not it would upset me. Actually, I have given up on the idea that the weather isn't on auto pilot for the most part. Please note I did say for the most part--there's a reason we call miracles miracles and not 'events I talked God into squeezing into his calender'. If they didn't violate the so called laws of nature no one would get all excited about them.

So the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous just alike. Good things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Obviously, this is not a reward and punishment system we're seeing in the weather. Why should it be anyway?

If good things only happen to me when I love God, doesn't that make him kind of a sugar daddy? In a creepy 'be a good girl and papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring' kind of way? I'm completely unwilling to take this analogy back to grade school. For little kids, rewards for good behavior are appropriate, but giving an adult a cookie for doing the dishes is kind of retarded. There's a point in every parent-child relationship when the kid demanding a quarter for making the bed is totally inappropriate. I think the universe is definitely at that point with God. If something bad happens to me, like breaking my leg or losing a job, it's not because God is an ungrateful primitive who didn't think there was enough prayer offered to him last week. It's because I wore shoes that made me slip. It's because that job wasn't a good fit for me.

If you can't realize that, you're an idiot. Everything I have has been given to me. If I say I earned something, that may be true, but the intelligence and the talent that allowed me to earn it were given to me. I didn't set the universe in motion. I didn't create the human brain. All that is a gift. The ability to respond to disasters with compassion and humanitarian aid is a gift. Actually, that right there is God's response to calamity. If we respond to our neighbor's misfortune with compassion and help, it's because he taught us to do so. It's not because it benefits us in any way. It's because it's right--and we were raised better than to sit on our hands and do nothing. It's because God lets good things happen to bad people---because he's God. He's God and he doesn't stop loving us just because we act like idiots and hurt each other. I think he's also holding out hope we'll grow up some day and finally get it.