Today's collect is: "Almight and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worth to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

God's abundance is an important starting point for me. But today I heard a sermon that focused on how everything we have is God's gift and I wanted to ask what about the bad things that happen, what about the times God doesn't protect us? I don't believe that God chooses for bad things to happen to us, but then how can you explain that God gives the good things that happen to us but not the bad ones?

I know the whole free will argument and I don't find it satisfactory because if you carry it to its logical conclusion then God never intervenes, and then what good is God? Mostly I just try to accept that the question of why God helps us sometimes and not other times is unanswerable, but I think it needs to be acknowledged, not ignored.