God works in mysterious ways

Hello, and thanks for tuning in.

Today I'm going to respond to this blog post from the venereal... I mean, venerable Joel Osteen

The Scripture says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord" (Psalm 37:23).

The scripture says a lot of things, but I'm glad to know that you think anything done in your god's name is good.

God is strategic.

Well, he's got to be.  It's not like he knows everything and can do anything, right?

Before you were formed in your mother's womb, He laid out a specific plan for you.

I've heard this one before.

Nothing happens randomly—not just the good breaks, the promotion, the times you see favor, but even the closed doors, the disappointments, and the betrayals are a part of God's plan.

So all the good and bad in life is, in fact, at the behest of god?  Most people won't admit that, but Joel will.

It may not make sense; it wasn't fair, but God wouldn't have allowed it if it wasn't going to work for your good.

You just told me that people whose cars blow up and kill them is part of god's plan.  Childhood cancer that kills children before they're old enough to speak. Gout.  Morgellons disease. Cystic fibrosis.

You're telling me these things work for our good?  I bet you're not gonna justify that, are you?

If you don't understand that, you'll be frustrated when things don't go your way, upset because somebody did you wrong, bitter because the door closed.

I'm sorry, little Johnny, but you have to understand.  God gave you this cancer that's gonna kill you soon, but don't be frustrated.  It's for your own good, Johnny.

In reality, these were ordained by God as setups to move you into your destiny.

That's right, little Johnny, god ordained you with the holy cancer, to move you through an incredibly painful existence, because that's your destiny.  Praise god, abuser of children, maker of wretches, deliverer of pestilence and strategic evil monger.

We can't comprehend the wisdom of God.

You hear that, lads?  

We just can't comprehend god's wisdom when he allows this stuff to happen.

If we can't comprehend his wisdom, then why's he gotta be strategically causing children to suffer abuse, or old men to be shot, for their own good, for their own destiny.You are not a pleasant person, Joel.

He can plan out generations and take mistakes, betrayals, and closed doors and somehow weave them all together to work for our good.

How exactly did a bullet to the head work for the old man's good?  How does abuse work for the good of those children?

When God told Abraham that he and Sarah were going to have a baby in their old age, Abraham tried to help God out by sleeping with Sarah's maid and having a son named Ishmael.

God can do anything, and that's why he makes you cheat on your wife I guess.

But God said, "He is not the promised child."

I mean, god could've also just made the servant barren, or made Sarah to be fertile, but I guess that wouldn't work for some reason.

What part of being a slave worked toward the good of the maid, again?

Ishmael was in one sense considered a mistake and caused problems in the home.

Mysterious ways...

Surely that was not in God's plan. And yet amazingly, it was descendants of Ishmael who came along at the right moment and kept Joseph, Abraham's great grandson, from dying in the pit when his brothers betrayed him (see Genesis 37).

What door did god open for Holofernes?

It's a shame god didn't have the power to, you know, close up the pit, or destroy the slavers like he destroyed Sodom and Gomorroah and Jericho and the Midianites and... well, let's stay on topic I guess.

The mistake of Abraham became the setup for the saving of Joseph, who helped save the rest of their family. That's how amazing God is.

God is so amazing that he couldn't just, you know, tell us who his chosen person was before some jerks tried to put him in shackles.

A while back Victoria lost a ring that had been in her family for several generations.

Ain't that a shame?  I hate losing things too.

For months we looked everywhere.

Did you really, though?  Did you look at the bottom of the Marianas trench?  I think you're engaging in hyperbole here, Joel.

Late one night, three years later, we were driving home on a rural freeway.

Dang, Joel is just like us.  He doesn't even have 54 million dollars for another private jet.  He has to drive, like some commoner.Maybe god will do some good in his life and get him another jet soon.

I was going about seventy in a sixty-five speed zone.

Don't worry, I'm sure god will protect you.

Victoria kept telling me, "Joel, slow down or you'll get a ticket," and sure enough, I got pulled over.

Rend unto Caesar!

When Victoria searched the glove compartment, she couldn't find the insurance card, so she ended up pulling everything out.

Dude, you gotta keep that stuff with your owner's manual.  That makes it very easy to find!

How much stuff does Joel keep in his glove box, anyway?

Reaching way to the back, she felt something way down in a crack, and finally pulled it out.

I didn't know this was one of those kinds of sermons.  This might get racy.

It was the long lost ring!

PRAISE JEEBUS

And she ended up finding the insurance card right on top of the pile. It was like God caused her to overlook it.

It's a shame he didn't just make you go the speed limit and, I dunno, not cause your wife to lose the ring in the first place.

Sometimes what we think is a setback is really a setup for God to do something great. God even knows how to turn our mistakes around for our good.

You do realize there's no mistakes if god does everything, right?  You do realize he caused your wife to lose her ring just so you could get a speeding ticket, right?  You've got your causality backward.  He didn't cause you to speed so you'd find the ring. 

More to the point, though, you probably didn't even get a ticket for only going 5mph over.  Was this also god's doing?  Again, if he works to make these things happen, then nothing is an accident, and every thing that happens is because god strategically makes it happen.

Thanks for tuning in!