Always?
What about the tsunami in Indonesia?
What was He thinking when he slammed the gulf coast with Katrina?
I am sorry, I have a friend who is confused and actually believes that...that Katrina was an act of God. He believes from scripture that a wrathful God is mad at sinners and to satisfy His need for justice throws tantrums like Katrina. What kind of a role model is that? (FYI- I am personally convinced that Satan is the author of Evil.)
He E mailed me to let me know that my other friend who believes that God isn't mad at sinners was off track and was a false teacher, some one I should avoid. Now, knowing he was confused about the God I am learning to trust and my friend, I felt it my duty to help bring him into the light. Never the less after plenty of scripture quoting back and forth we had to call a truce. This confusion wasn't going to be solved at least initially on grounds of intellectual prowess. He is fully convinced that I am in the dark on this subject. ( FYI- I do believe the bible, I also believe there is a crying need for a much deeper revelation of our God of Justice and the part we are called upon to play as believers in righting the wrongs, injustices and the evils in our world...a lot like the call on spider man... The part we are to play in ushering in the kingdom in the here and now. I just think my friend is starting from the wrong premise and thus has come to many wrong conclusions.) But it has got me thinking about the number one sin of man, the sin of unbelief, the sin that is the mother of every other sin, the sin that makes God mad.
As you can see from my blog I am still immersed in Ephesians and I got to chapter two where it states "We were dead"....in a dark and dirty world ruled by the prince and power of the air, the prince of darkness. We lived by the passions of our flesh and minds, disillusioned in the cesspool of self indulgence, under the influence of lies and in the down ward spiral of a world awry, without hope ...children of wrath...wrath reserved for the prince and his pinions. True story.
But this was not how it all started. In the beginning of time, in a place called Eden, a wonderfully happy, orderly and purposeful place, the snake convinced Eve and then Adam through Eve that possibly God should not be trusted....that He may not be Good, Wonderful and Loving...that He may have a strong back hand.
Prior to this question being posed, God and man enjoyed the best of friendship, the most fulfilling of occupations, the finest of wines and the deepest communion imaginable. They were secure, inseparable and intimate. This one question with its insinuation of mistrust caused a domino effect that forever changed the coarse of history. For the first time the Loving God of all creation was viewed through the prism of mistrust and fear. And Adam and Eve hid themselves from God. To this day that one lie prevails in our hearts, actually the same theory that Satan proposed to Eve, that maybe God should not be trusted... The lie that ultimately cost us our place of intimacy and friendship with an amazingly good God. The same lie continues to haunt us all. Maybe we aren't loved. Maybe we are all alone in the universe and maybe God isn't good after all. From there we leave the entirely good God premise and are left to interpret our lives in the view of a non existent God or a distant God, or a God with a bad attitude. The picture of a God emerges who is full of wrath, pissed off and angry, a vengeful God barely holding back His hand of judgement and torment ready to be poured out on the seedy minions spawning across the face of the earth.
He is a liar! Not my friend... my friend is just confused.
I mentioned that I am still learning... to trust. Brenan says "some where along the way in the life of the maturing Christian, faith combined with hope grows into trust. Based on the lived experience of God's relentless faithfulness, a confidence blossoms that God is with us to continue and to finish what he started."
Ephesians 2: And you He made alive, who once were dead...Children of wrath. BUT God, who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses made us alive together with Christ. (By grace you have been saved), and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Why? So that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His KINDNESS towards us in Christ Jesus.
In the third chapter as in the first chapter he prays "that we would be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith (These were the promises Jesus gave us the night He was betrayed) and that we being rooted and grounded in LOVE would comprehend with all saints what is the width and length, depth and height, to know the LOVE of Christ which passes knowledge....that we would be filled with all the fullness of God."
I am still trying to comprehend this amazing truth. "God is crazy about me." And if I am reading it right, believing that and being rooted in that truth is the beginning and the ending of confidence and trust for every and in every situation I am faced with... and for every opportunity and challenge God places in front of me as His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works .
I am loved by my creator. He is my relentless redeemer and amazingly GOOD all of the time.
"And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not yield for Christ has willed His truth to triumph through us".
God is Good and You and me?...We are the antidote for a world gone awry.
