When is and is it not God?

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I have heard athletes and movie stars suggest that their fame and fortune involves God.  While success in those fields, given the numbers of those interested in being a part of it, is probably slightly rarefied, I suspect God had nothing to do with it beyond starting the whole ball rolling in the first places.  At that point choices by present folk, and of course our predecessors, played a roll.  Probability is what it is to include chaos theory; and maybe a few other events, some perhaps peripherally dealing with God, leading into our time... such as how the flood changed how things where, so are today.  But God did not come down and suggest to some talent scout to pick So-and Whoositz.  Beyond, considering the Hollywood, and "atheletic" set, and what goes on behind the scenes, I have great doubt that God, if He were to get involved, would do anything but keep people out of those viper pits.

Look, if you died and yet live... if you had a terminal illness and just "impossibly" got better... if the sun stops in the sky and the oceans turn red?  Yeah, that might have something to do with God.  Much else?  I am quite dubious.  Yes, I would have wanted to see the wounds.  Yes, I would have checked them closely.  But neither did Christ lament, or repudiate St. Thomas.  Nor will God do so today.  Miracles?  Sure.  But your job, health, long life, or how many pencils you have... not so much.

Many people, including myself, make the mistake of confusing God with rarity.  While I have been dead three times, over a usually quickly terminal illness which I have unbelievably lived with for decades beyond the life expectancy of such...  I don't think God, truly, did anything but... start the ball rolling.  Choices, in the past, before my time, by people I have never heard of, both in my line and outside of it, lead to my birth, in a place and time, where with what I was born with, I was able to survive.  Nothing more... probably.  God does throw curve-balls though, and has His own reasons and intent, both built in and through involvements.  Nothing is certain until it is or isn't.

Chance?  Not... quite.  Willed chance, by God, but not His direct command or even direct involvement.  Choice is involved, but obviously is not how things run.  A reality brew, you might say, concocted of many ingredients and processes.  So many things are wrongly construed.  If it is bad, could it be God?  Why... yes.  Easily.  Happily should one have entertained Wisdom, if perhaps only in time.  We are, after all, truly just human.  A true martyr will receive rewards like few others.  Job learned harshly, but held and was rewarded even here.  Rain will fall on the house of the good and evil.  It just will.

Oh, by the way... My mother has finally, after many years of not and no likelihood of starting, started attending church.  I have prayed for this for... many years.  She knew my intent but had her own.  Funny, she is in church while I... sit here at home?  Ah, but, it isn't as it seems.  Should I be in a coma, it would make more sense.  None would question it.  My health makes... exact hour attendance quite a... trick.  Alive, but, often, not.  You, most of you, think nothing of showering, grooming, dressing, and being somewhere at precisely the half hour before the hour.  For me that is akin to a tactical operation, involving every bit of effort and concentration I can pull together.  And, even so, it fails quite often.  I have gotten it all done, and headed toward the door, many times, to look at the clock and see the time has... passed.  Not just minutes late, sometimes hours.  It is not impossible to have done so on the wrong day... or did it just take... a... really... long... time...  *shrug*  Time... doesn't quite mean the same to you and to me, I think.  Still, I was quite pleased, and I will... work... in the next month... to try to make it, and be with her at church, if only in spirit through time and space.  If the dead can raise the dead, there be yet hope.