God's Will

I have just finished reading an article and am dumbstruck. It was an article based on the book waking the dead by John Eldredge. He was basically saying that unless we realise that we are in a battle situations then it is easy to misinterpret things, it is easy to misunderstand and misrepresent God. He went on to say that it is easy to believe that bad things that happen to us are because it is "God's Will". Now whilst I would never have said that God had bad things happen to us because he wanted to inflict pain or cause us distress; it pains me to realise that at some point along the way I have been holding God responsible. I didn't even realise it up until this moment but I have most definately been thinking that the reason I went through all that stuff was because God wanted it not to hurt me but so that he could bring me to a place of greater compassion, greater understanding etc. that I wouldn't have been able to get to without going through it.

The truth is that it wasn't God who co-ordinated that full fronted attack but Satan. It was he who conceived the idea and put it into place. God merely desires to turn bad for good and to not allow Satan's attck to be the end of the story. How could I have thought otherwise??? I'm so astounded that I had so obviously must have thought that without even realising.

I see I need to delve more into this and get it firmly established in my head and my heart that it was at no point and in no way from God.