I’m sure you’ve been to a funeral or memorial service where you heard someone refer to the deceased and say something to the effect of “God must have wanted a ______ so he decided to call _______ home”. When you fill in the blanks it goes something like this: “God must have wanted a plumber in heaven, so he decided to call Uncle Jerry home.”
I really wish people would stop using phrases like this. It portrays God to be this selfish figure that causes death only for his personal gain. That is just not a true representation of who God is and what he is all about.
I’m not a theological scholar, so I can’t fully explain why God allows death to happen in our lives. All I know is that death is part of our lives here on Earth. However, I do know this. We do not die simply because we are so special that God can not stand us being on Earth for another day and he absolutely must bring us to heaven. We do not die just because God has some great desire to “hang” with us. He can “hang” and be with us while we are on Earth. All we need to do is let him in.
God gives us all free will. While he has intended plans for our lives, we sometimes do things to mess those plans up. So when we or other people make poor decisions, premature death is a possible occurrence. Overdosing on drugs, drunk driving, not eating healthy foods, smoking, and being at the wrong place with the wrong people are all things that could cause us to “go before our time.”
So, when someone takes a gun and goes on a killing spree, I don’t think it is because God had a couple of vacant positions in heaven that we wanted to fill. It is because someone made a horrendous decision.
Some things in our lives are God made while others are man made. We should all try to do a better job of making the distinction between the two. We want people to come to know and love God. When we misrepresent Him, we aren’t doing Him any favors.
These thoughts are just my opinion. Let me know what you think.
