Friday, March 6, 2015

Choosing

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Monday, March 9, 2015
 “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked.  “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”  The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”
Genesis 3:11-12 (NLT)
In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit; then came the cover-up.  God questioned Adam and the man blamed the whole affair on his bride.  And then he blamed God for giving him the woman in the first place.

Not taking responsibility for our actions has been humankind’s specialty ever since!

Philip Yancey, in his book Reaching for the Invisible God[2] describes the way God gets the blame for just about everything.

"When Princess Diana died in an automobile accident, a minister was interviewed and was asked the question “How can God allow such a terrible tragedy?”  He said, “Could it have had something to do with a drunk driver going ninety miles an hour in a narrow tunnel?  Just How, exactly, was God involved?”

Years ago, boxer, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, killed a Korean opponent with a hard right hand to the head.  At the press conference after the Korean’s death, Mancini said, “Sometimes I wonder why God does the things he does.”

In a letter to Dr. James Dobson, a young woman asked this anguished question, “Four years ago, I was dating a man and became pregnant.  I was devastated. I asked God, “Why have you allowed this to happen to me?”

Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother years ago who pushed her two sons into a lake to drown and then blamed a fictional car-jacker for the deed, wrote in her confession:  “I dropped to the lowest point when I allowed my children to go down that ramp into the water without me.  I took off running and screaming, ‘Oh God! Oh God, no!  What have I done?  Why did you let this happen?”

Now the question remains, exactly what role did God play in a boxer beating his opponent to death, a teenage couple giving into temptation in the back seat of a car, or a mother drowning her children?

Is God responsible for these acts?  To the contrary, they are examples of incredible human free will being exercised on a fallen planet.  And yet it’s in our nature as mortal, frail, fallen people to lash out at one who is not [frail, fallen or guilty], that being God."

I have met many people in my life; some were exceedingly proud of their family tree, while others try to hide as many details as possible.  But if you trace the “human tree” back far enough we all eventually have the Fall as our starting point.

Considering the shaky state of contemporary culture in the matter of trustworthy character, it is time for a little confrontation with God’s standard of truth-telling.

To wit:  Whatever comes out of your mouth, you cannot change the truth.  All you can do with a lie is make things worse.

For You Today

Think and pray before you answer a question; by committing to total truth when you speak, you will make the world a better place.



[1] Title Image: By Jagbirlehl (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons
[2] Philip Yancy, Reaching for the Invisible God, Zondervan, 2009

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