Cupcakes and Lottery Tickets

There are definitely occasions when I don't get my meaning across. :) We *are* in agreement. I think of our Heavenly Father very much like a human parent, only with a full knowledge of all consequences and absolute perfection. My kids would like me to feed them endless cupcakes... I would like to win the lottery. But my Father in Heaven doesn't think I need all those dollars any more than I think my kids should subsist on a diet of pure sugar.

Are cupcakes (or dollars) bad? No. Not in proportion to the need/use you'll put them to - just as you said. But how do we know as humans what sort of use we'd put things to? My mom used to come home from school, eat a whopping big slice of cake, and then go do chores ... burnt right off. I give my kids small portions of desserts. Why? Because they don't go work in the fields to burn off the calories. The same thing applies to our Heavenly Father and Christians and the lottery. (NonChristians aren't under that particular part of His will, imo, because He's not controlling the use they put anything to). If He allows us to have something like that in our lives, it's because He thinks we will use it well.

Now, of course we can counter His permissive will and we can use what He gives us to sin. I think we violate the permissive will of God every time we sin... it's never His will that we do that. However, I think He can and does use even sin and its consequences for good if we are His. The best good that could have been? No. But good ne'ertheless.

1 Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

Continuing with the analogy of God as parent (and continuing to agree with you), I make my son do homework. Does that make him happy right now? No, not really. But it will make him happy later. I make him have his shots and go to the dentist. Is any of that designed to make him happy? No. But it's for the best. Yet - if there was a way I could make sure he'd never get polio, without a needle going into his arm - would I choose that? Of course!

And so, I believe, with our Heavenly Father. While He's not preoccupied with the happiness of the now at the expense of the glory of the Hereafter, I don't think it's His pleasure to see any of His children unhappy. So - should I go through a time of pain and heartache, I can trust that He is growing me up, using me to the glory of His kingdom, or SOMETHING. Someone will have the benefit, even if it's not me. Some die for Him, some suffer every day for Him. None of that pain or suffering is unnecessary, none is wasted. The God who tracks each sparrow's fall would not let any of His children hurt for no reason.

And, with this agreement... I close.