My world and how I see it

My brother sent me a thought for the day today. he sends me one everyday but today it was FOR me. It said :

"God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teachus lessons we could not learn in any other way. The way we learn thoselessons is not to deny the feelings but to find the meanings underlyingthem."

WOW! I was like YES, how true this is, this is ME, I can tell you a story for this one. So of course I sent this to everyone in my address book including my minister. He replied w/ this:

"…before we choose to follow God's will, a crisis must develop in our lives. This happens b/c we tend to be unresponsive to God's gentler nudges. He brings us to the place where He asks us to be our utmost for Him and we begin to debate. He then providentially produces a crisis where we have to decide – for or against. That moment becomes a great crossroads in our lives. If a crisis has come to you on any front, surrender your will to Jesus absolutely and irrevocably."

Now mind you these are quoted from famous people so neither of them made these up. But when he sent that, I was a bit puzzled. I understand what this guy is saying in the quote, I really do, but it kind of upset me that God thinks that I have to go thru SOOO much b/c I didnt feel a nudge he was giving me. I have been through many a crisis and believe me, I FELT every single nudge He sent to me. So I replied with this:

Okay... I'm not slow and I understand what he is saying, but I don't think I like it. Maybe not like it is not the right choice of words. But it kinda makes me mad to think that God thinks I'm being unresponsive to his nudges and therefore brings about a crisis. Hmmmmm maybe I am reading too much into it. I mean I really understand what hes saying but I don't know that I agree it works that way. At least not in my case....
And once again he came back w/ this:

I agree with you. We were talking about this subject last night in the teen class and the question came up, "Do you pray more in the good times or the bad?" Not that I think God brings bad things into our lives to make us pray, but I do think that many, not all, have a tendency to forget Him when things are good. When things are good, they often have this false sense of personal empowerment. It's the "Look what I did" mentality. Now, I truly don't believe that that happens with everyone. I think sometimes the trials God allows us to go through are the result Him wanting us to grow, mature. But sometimes, I do think Chambers is right in that God uses the crisis b/c His gentle nudgings have gone ignored.

Hmmmm..... I understand, I really do, but thats a hard pill to swallow sometimes ya know. So I sat an thought about all the times I think I can handle everything on my own. All the times when I think its ME who is making all the decisions w/ no help from anyone.... who am I kidding?!?!?!? So I have been through alot, and I do believe that the devil played a big part in alot of that.. it wasn't God. But He did allow me to go thru it to learn, to make me better, to help someone else that may go thtough the same things I went through. All I guess I can say is Thank You