Does Everything Always Turn Out How God Wants?

I recently saw the following statement on Facebook:

If things aren't turning out how you expected, don't worry, they're turning out how God wants. Amen. 

This sounds very spiritual and even pious when you first read it. But does everything really happen because it's "turning out how God wants?"

Did God really desire for a teenage girl, who loves and serves Jesus, to be beaten and raped, and get pregnant as a result?

Is it God's plan that thousands of women and children should be working as sex slaves in the red light districts of Calcutta, India?

Is a young wife and mother of three dying of breast cancer at 30 really God's best intention for that family?

Is This Not Idolatry?

 Just this week, I saw this graphic shared by a friend on Facebook.

I had seen a similar (or maybe the same) image several months ago.

5 Roadblocks and 5 Aids to Communication

Dr. Darrell L. Bock's latest book, Cultural Intelligence: Living for God in a Diverse, Pluralistic World, includes some timely information concerning five things that lead to cutting off dialogue and communication, and five things that can help foster conversation with those with whom we have foundational disagreements. Following is a quick synopsis of both sets of points, quoting excerpts from pages 62-66.

Truth in Meming

One of the major problems with communication in our modern era is the absolute glut of information. We're bombarded by 24-hour cable news, online news sites that send alerts about stories to our smart phones, and links and memes shared by family and friends on an endless list of social media platforms.

Every voice is competing to be heard in a very crowded, noisy room. The American public seems to have a very short attention span and to not want to take the time to read anything that does detailed analysis or requires deep thought and self-aware reflection. 

There's even an abbreviation for that -- TLDR, which stands for "too long, didn't read." (Consider the irony of shortening a four-word phrase to four letters, because using the full words would take too long for the writer to type and too long for the consumer to read.)

I suspect some of you, if you scroll down this post, may even say "TLDR" and move away without reading further. (But if you do that, you'll just be proving my point.)