Whose Fault Is It?

A wife cries on receiving news of her husband's terminal cancer. A jogger gets mugged and raped, and the rapist gets off scot-free on a legal technicality. There's another earthquake in China, a tornado in Oklahoma, a freak nuclear leak in Japan. Hundreds of thousands die everyday all over the world. The randomness of accidents; one minute your best friend is talking with you on the phone, within the next hour, you see fotos of his still body splashed all over Fb, victim of a hit-n-run. Innocent lives lost through no fault of their own. Evil running rampant unchecked. Bad things happen to good people. Bad people prosper. It's senseless. If God was so loving, so powerful and so good, why doesn't he stop all the bad and wrong stuff in life from happening before it happens?? He must be very cruel to just watch from his tower in heaven and not lift a finger to bring an end to madness and sadness on earth. It's either he can't or he won't be bothered. Perhaps god is sleeping on the job; he should be fired then. If there was a god who created the universe, he shouldn't let it be or go on in such a mess; it's highly irresponsible. At the very least he should explain himself. What a useless "Boss". Why talk of heaven when he can't even handle earth? Or maybe there's just no god up there or anywhere for that matter. Man will just have to deal with life and death himself. Some justifiably angry souls would undoubtedly declare - To hell with god.

Well, indulge me a moment. Listen to what God might have to say about it....Didn't I tell you not to eat that fruit? Didn't I warn you this is exactly what would happen? Do you even realize what you have done; that with one bite, you have condemned yourself and all your kind for all eternity? Do you not understand? How many people have I sent to nudge, counsel, advise, preach, nag, lecture and bore you to death (pun intended) about sin? How many times must you be told anyway before you 'get it'? Wasn't that big flood enough to wake you up to repent? Do you know how I grieve watching you destroy everything I have ever created good, beautiful and perfect? Do you honestly think I am talking about the atmosphere, animals or trees? I am talking about you. Why is it you won't let me save you? Is it my fault for giving you freedom to do all things, even wrong things? What, so now it's my fault for not sorting out the mess you made? Don't you see, I already sorted it out for you?! Why is it you can't believe I love you? What do I need to do to prove it - die for you? Ok, I have done it, so why is it you still don't believe?

What's our answer to all that 'sin, judgment and Jesus saves' stuff? Can't be true. Can't be proven, so just... Can't be. Yet if we are the rational people we pride ourselves to be, knowing there are always 2 sides to a coin, have we ever considered the why's and wherefore's of life from God's perspective? If we could take a trip with Him down memory lane to the time it all started when.... "In the beginning, God created.." There in Genesis Chapters 1 and 2 is the blueprint - the original design of Paradise and Man, the way it should be; where everything was created to be good, perfect and eternal. It was only in Chapter 3 that everything unraveled ...and Humpty-Dumpty Man had a great Fall, and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty-Dumpty Man back together again. Humpty -Dumpty fell off the wall because eggs can't sit on walls, Man fell because he chose to exercise his (God-given) freedom to go his own way. You might say he pushed God off the throne of his life and plopped himself there.

Apostle Paul explains it very well, "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools... Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done." -Romans 1:20-22, 28.  God 'gave them over' - in plainer English, God says,' Go ahead, whaaatever.... get depraved if that's what you want. It's up to you to choose to believe and follow Me, or to disbelieve and go your own way.  The consequences will be yours to bear, but I will always be here for you; I will never leave nor forsake you'.

But ....surely that's 'not very nice' of God? As my princess no. 2 so imaginatively puts it, it's like a parent letting her kid walk off a cliff knowing that it's life-threatening, and then if the kid doesn't die in the process, picks him up, puts him into hospital and pays the medical bills. Of coz by then the kid may have to spend his remaining life in a wheelchair. What kind of God does that? My answer, if I am that parent, is also not 'very nice' . When I have done all I can do to get my kid to stay away from the cliff and he still insists on walking over it, becoz he wants to exercise his freedom , honestly, I will step back and let him walk off , even if it's obviously going to pain me very very much watching him do it. That may not be kind, but if all my kid is interested in is his right to live life his way, then I would let him go do it. Don't I love my kid? Of coz but let's not confuse kindness with love. Ask any parent with kids; we don't have to be kind to love them. That's why I will be there to pick up my kid at the bottom of the cliff....But it would be too late; he would be a cripple for life. Well, I am sorry, kiddo. That's the consequence of a choice you made. So please don't blame me (or God) for it.

We can't have it both ways. Why should God be held accountable for the results of a decision that we don't like when we are the ones who chose it, especially when we have already been forewarned about it? It doesn't take an Isaac Newton to tell us for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. What do we expect, honestly, you mean it's acceptable that after we wilfully go bang our own head against a wall and get hurt, then we turn around and say, Hey, God, you didn't take care of me enough; you should have removed that wall from my head?! The point is obvious - it's not God's fault if we don't listen or obey. Like someone put it so succintly, God doesn't send people to hell. We choose to go there ourselves.

To blame God for allowing bad things to happen is to fail to understand that ever since Adam messed up in Eden , we have lived and continue to live in a fallen world of fallen man, where bad things will happen. What, so we blame our long-dead-and-gone ancestor? Put it this way, Adam started the ball rolling, and we are the ones still in the 'game', playing with the same ball everyday. It wasn't just Adam who pushed God out of his life - all of us are still at it - doing things, living life our way, instead of His way. Perhaps if we bothered to admit that fact, then we won't be so quick to 'judge' God for what He does or doesn't do, when the horrible consequences of man's choices hit us and our world.

Then perhaps we will appreciate the reason that He seems so 'unconcerned' about all the evil, suffering and bad things going on is because He's already dealt with them, in a way we can never really fully comprehend within the limitations of this puny human brain of ours. Sure God could send armies of angels to pluck people off dangerous cliffs, but that wouldn't have solved the problem, which is really people who will keep insisting to go their way, not cliffs. Once when I was jogging my way round the field during my morning exercise routine, it struck me how every few days, even despite obvious regular mowing and upkeep, the love-grass would spring up so fast and stick to my shoes and socks. Its very irritating to say the least as it's tedious and difficult to pull off. (I have since stopped bothering to pull them out, resulting in obviously dirty and ugly shoes). And I recall how my husband tended our garden - he didn't mow, he painstakingly pulled out weed after weed by the root to make sure those pesky plants would never grow again (these days the gardener I call to come takes the normal easy way - he mows). Of coz new weeds promptly sprang up in no time, but there it is, that's the futility of man's attempts.

Well, God doesn't mess around with the gardens of human souls. He went straight to the root of the matter. He won't stop man from sinning - it's our call. And it's not because He doesn't love us, it's precisely because He loves us that He gives everyone the freedom to make choices in life, with very clear warnings as to the ultimate consequences of those choices. He won't take away the consequences either, because that would run counter to the rules of the game - you sin, you pay, with death - that's a certainty; the law of justice that must be satisfied. God didn't overwrite that law against us; instead He fulfilled it for us - He sent Jesus Christ, to pay our penalty. If He were unkind, He would simply have sat back and 'let us stew in our own juices'. He could have been that parent who's just waiting to condemn the rebellious kid who got into trouble, "See, I told you so....Now let's see you get out of this hell-hole yourself". He didn't. Instead God con-descended from heaven and once and for all, pulled out the poisonous sin-root that kills man- He overcame death for all men for all time. Jesus died on the cross and rose alive, presenting us a choice to believe and a chance to get it right once more, to regain what mankind lost 'in the beginning'....

Whose fault is it again? We should know better.

"Therefore, as through one man (Adam)'s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in  condemnation, even so through one Man (Jesus)'s righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous" - Romans 5:18-19