Sunday sickness

Well it seems sickness has settled in. I know a lot of people sometimes wonder about sickness, death, and other terrible things that happen to people. Some people blame God, some people blame themselves and some people blame Swine Flu. And while it is easy to just pass around blame in its essence sickness, cancer, mental illness, death; they are all products of sin entering the world. When Adam the first man on earth had sinned God had cursed the planet and the life upon it saying "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat of the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." (Gen. 3:17-19) So that pretty much stunk for us because we are now born into a world full of sin and death. Sin is rebellion towards God, but it was a choice of man, not something that God imposed. The only thing God imposed was a free will. If you asked most people today if free will is a bad thing, hopefully most people would say no. God made us so that we could think about why he allows evil in the world. Of course then you would have to check yourself saying, wait haven't I done my share of evil in the world. Maybe not through any visible actions, but you would have to be pretty self-righteous not to admit that you have had one lustful thought, or hatred towards another, or even thoughts of jealousy for power or prestige. A lot of Christians I know also struggle with the whole idea of how to pray against it. Some just say let your will be done for you know all things and they completely trust in God. That is great and we are supposed to have reverence for God's will. But what if God's will is that you plead with him and ask for miraculous healing. What if God calls us into a relationship with him where we can ask and in confidence in his faithfulness receive like no other child has ever received. God does not call us to blindly follow Him, we need faith that he is real and will fulfill his promises. I know I still need to world on this too, but we can't be afraid to ask of God. If it was not for God's people interceding and bringing requests before God. Israel would have been destroyed long before they would have reached Canaan, Ninevah would have been destroyed if it was not for their humility and penitence, If Daniel had not prayed for Israel's return to Jerusalem maybe they would have never had freedom from their exile until a later time. God is faithful to fulfill his promises and he has sustained me in times when I thought I had screwed up everything. God uses times of strife to move his people into prayer and do great things and fulfill the prophecies of old. "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Rev. 21:3-5) My sickness doesn't seem so bad anymore.