I suddenly thought that our God is a trickster god, forever laughing from his throne on high.
Why did He give us free will, when He created us solely for us to worship Him? Why didn't He just make us subservient animals? I started to believe that He did it as a grand cosmic joke, guffawing wildly as He watches human kind blindly pay tribute to Him whilst they are stricken with poverty, disease, war, and death. Why did He bother? If He truly wanted us to be devoted to worshipping Him, why didn't He create us blind, deaf, and dumb, capable of hearing ONLY His words? Also, if he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, why have it there in the first place? I started to believe that it was all a grand setup, the sole domino that would cause the chain reaction that was God's greatest joke, the human being.
Boy, do I know where you are coming from. I have been there in spades. It just seems like God is mocking.
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He says He has our best interests always in view; we are told that he is primarily interested in the production of character, not the provision of comfort. He wants to conform us to the image of His Son. Still, it sure seems like He's snickering at our misfortunes, looking for ways to make things as difficult as they could possibly be, and we are really wondering whether He is really all as benevolent as He claims.
That, though, is at some level really the point.
Let's go back to Eden. One thing always bothered me about that story: the clothes. Adam and Eve were naked, and it wasn't a problem. Then they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and suddenly they had this compulsion to clothe themselves. Was it wrong for them to be naked? If so, why did God let them be naked all that time? Then was it wrong for them to clothe themselves? If that were the case, could God have facilitated this by giving them clothes? No, it seems that it's not wrong to be naked or clothed. Then why is it that they clothed themselves when they suddenly understood good and evil? The answer is there, in the text, but it's hard to see. Being naked made them vulnerable. When suddenly they understood evil, they realized what someone could do to harm them. They clothed themselves for protection. Then God came, and they realized that their meager clothing could not protect them from Him. Adam said he knew that he was naked, and he was afraid. He was afraid of God, afraid that God would hurt him, and he could not protect himself.
Let's fast forward to Abraham. Paul catches the critical point, and quotes it in Romans 4: Abraham believed God, and God counted that as righteousness. What is it that Abraham believed? It wasn't that God existed. It was Genesis 15, I think, where God says that this childless elderly man whose wife is well past childbearing years is going to be the father of more descendants than he could count. Abraham had every reason to think that God was pulling his chain, lying to him, playing him for a fool. How could Sarah have children? How could he? However, Abraham did not think God would do such a thing. He trusted what God told him, and God said, that's what I really want, people to trust me.
In the same way it comes to us. It looks so much like God is snickering behind our backs. He says that He is working all things for our good, forming us into the image of His Son. Who do we believe? Do we trust what He tells us, or not? As God made clear with Job, we won't always get an explanation; all we get is the assurance that God loves us, and that He knows what He is doing.
In a nutshell, that's the whole point: do you trust God, or not? I of all people understand the doubt; I have lived in that doubt. However, in the end, there's no hope in not trusting God, and nothing we can do if it is all a cosmic joke. He says He has our perfection in view. We might as well trust Him for that, and live through whatever comes in the hope that this is perfecting us.
I do hope this helps.
--M. J. Young
Chaplain, Christian Gamers Guild
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