Into the Fire

It is so convenient to blame God. If He’s supposed to be a God of love, why is there so much murder, disease, war, strife, child abuse, poverty, and you name the favorite sin? People who do not submit to the godly standards laid out in detail in the Bible demand to know how a god could allow such destruction and desolation on the earth. They perceive Him to be like the evil emperor in “Gladiator” with His thumbs down on the human race.

Yet when life is good, it isn’t God who gets the nod. It’s “good luck” or their own achievements or their hard work and ingenuity. Certainly not a “blessing” from God.

I cannot imagine the utter heartbreak of the Creator who breathed life into the human creation, walked with him in the cool of the evening, gave him detailed instructions about caring for the garden, presented him with a wealth of beauty and teeming life, and ultimately surprised him with the girl of his dreams, when that human creation defied His warnings and made up his mind to do as he pleased. Parents experience it to a lesser degree quite often. But no parent has had to watch the entire human race fall and take a perfect world with it as our Creator did. He gave us our choice. And to this day, we still make the same stupid decision to listen to the enemy of our souls.

Yesterday we spoke of parents and children. Little toddlers who symbolically thumb their petite noses at their parents’ guidelines to not touch, taste, or run to what is off limits to them—just like the adults Adam and Eve decided to do to a perfect Father and a sinless, uncorrupted existence on earth. It’s in our blood to be disobedient in a cursed by sin world. What once was unimaginably beautiful is now grievously flawed. Because of God? No. Because of human decision. Free will. The ability to hear two sides of something and render a decision on which one to embrace. One Truth, the other false with clever increments of true particles, enough to deceive, tantalize and tempt, and ultimately to corrupt and destroy.

Now there is a price to revisit perfection. Only we didn’t have to pay the admission. We simply have to acknowledge it and agree to it. We had it all. We lost it all. Now once again it is available to us. Through someone else’s payment for us. An excruciating death and a redeeming resurrection.

And still there are those of us who want no boundaries, no rules, no standards, no one telling us what we should or shouldn’t do. We want to be god in our own lives. And we want to go to heaven just because we think we should and, of course, certain others shouldn’t because they are really bad, and we’re not.

And what kind of a God would send people to hell anyway? Not a God of love, right? Right. That’s why He provided the way to keep from going there. For everyone who still has breath.

If you’re looking to blame someone, look in the mirror. We are all unrighteous, selfish, and have the potential to be evil. We inherited it. And we indulge it for as long as we can. Some of us will become sick of sin, of ourselves, of the way we are, and seek relief, rescue, and restoration. Only one place to find it. It’s in the love of God through His Son Jesus Christ.

Wrongdoing facilitates blame. Misguided thinking wants to blame the One who desires to deliver us from our own ignorance, futility, and error. We are unreasonable, lack understanding of what we fail and are unable to see, are arrogant enough to assume our interpretations of a man-made history of our existence is correct, and yet we cannot explain what lies beyond the stars whose numbers are un-countable. God created. He did nothing wrong. Placing blame upon God is like demanding water to cease to be wet.

He doesn’t need my defense. I know that. He is Truth. He is Love. He is Just and Perfect, Holy and Righteous. He Is.

Let me leave you today with a few direct quotes . . .

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

“Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?

“Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
Who endowed the heart with wisdom
or gave understanding to the mind?”

Job 38:4-7; 12-13; 34-36