I've noticed a series of news articles (here and here, for starters) where people make statements that essentially boil down to "I don't understand why God did this to me, therefore, it's wrong / He's not justified to have done it / etc." "Who is God to have done this to ME?"
In the Post article, people are quoted in response to the 9.11.2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon with:
"I look at him [God] now as a barbarian," he says, "and it's a sad situation. I think I'm a good Christian, but I have a different view and image of him now, and I can't replace it with the old image."
"I can't bring myself to speak to him anymore because I feel so abandoned," she says. "But I guess deep down inside, I know he still exists and that I have to forgive and move on. But I'm not ready to do that yet."
David Letterman is quoted to say:
"We're told that they were zealots fueled by religious fervor," Letterman continued, shaking his head. "Religious fervor. And if you live to be a thousand years old, will that make any sense to you? Will that make any [expletive removed] sense?"
In my opinion, these quotes and both stories point to examples of THE key problem with our great Country - arrogance.
Arrogance is what gives us the attitude that we MUST know better than God, so if it doesn't make sense to us, it can't be correct.
Arrogance is what created the idea that the Bible's standards were too harsh and that we needed to be accepting of EVERTHING - creating a bastardized concept of "tolerance". (There IS a Biblical concept of tolerance, but it's NOT how today's society enacts it.)
Arrogance is what gives us the idea that we can have the audacity to think that WE need to forgive God of some of His actions.
Arrogance is what gives us the idea that we can blend and blur gods into some sort of "deity mixer" so that it's palatable and containable to us.
Unfortunately, it's ultimately this arrogance that comforts us as we sin. (See Challies.com for a great article on the comfort of sin.) Because we're so arrogant, it gives us blind confidence in our sinful views of Man and God. Because we're so arrogant, we can't tolerate any idea that condemns and convicts our sins for what they are.
It's heartbreaking to see people shake their fists at God. While it's OK to express anger, disappointment, sorrow, and indeed all of our emotions to God (He created them, so why not? He certainly understands them.), there's a line where you're blaspheming God, rejecting God, denouncing God - in fact, you're COMPETING with God.
God has a way to deal with competition. He wins. Always. Truly, there is no competition. He's a jealous God. He's a perfect God. He's an infinite God. You can't out-think or out-reason or bargain with God. Now or ultimately, you will submit to Him. He'll allow you to shake your fist at Him the whole time while you're separated from Him. It doesn't change His Deity.
I could go into why God does the things He does, but in truth, we don't always know. God is Supreme. We're not. God is God. We are not. We know principles that He has shown us in the Bible, but I believe to limit God to even what we find in His Word is wrong. God is even bigger than Scripture.
I just pray that God, in His infinite wisdom, brings these folks that are quoted above back to Himself. They seem like they may have had some knowledge of Him at one point, but they've (understandably, in human terms) been shaken at their foundation. God can bring them back into a loving relationship with Himself.
Likewise, I pray for a new "awakening" for our Country. We so desperately need it. We need to separate and elevate God from what we've placed above and around Him. But that includes ourselves and that's the hardest of all to resolve.
Later.