God's on my side; God gave me cancer

this weekend, there's a four-page article in NYT Magazine about Mark Driscoll. i'm not a fan of Mark's style and cultural interpretations, but honestly some of what i've heard him preach resonates with me theologically (which may expose some of my own religious conservatism). a few lines in the article relate to my previous post and a subsequent discussion i've been having with a friend:

Reducing God to a projection of our own wishes trivializes divine sovereignty and fails to explain how both good and evil have a place in the divine plan. “There are plenty of comfortable people who can say, ‘God’s on my side,’ ” Harris says. “But they couldn’t turn around and say, ‘God gave me cancer.’ ”

if we only attribute 'good works' to God (in order to maintain our perception that God is "good"), then isn't it all arbitrary and thus meaningless? i myself have been struck by my own shifting interpretations of what's good and bad. they change all the time; just ask my closest friends. "it was a curse; it was a blessing; it was a curse; it was a blessing..."

we know that God made Sarah and Rachel barren (also made them fertile), so why can't we attribute other maladies or griefs to God? is God only a dispenser of blessings and not of curses? not that i don't believe in Satan's role in all our troubles, but i lean toward the belief that Satan tempts (and we do our own falling), and God selectively intervenes (in ways we like and don't).

finally -- often the enormity of curses (i.e. cancer) doesn't seem fitting to our 'crimes', yet we are seldom willing to admit that neither is the enormity of blessings. such ingrates; i'll own that.