Who hurts Whom

We cause most of our own suffering.

Think about all the things we complain about, war, disease, natural disasters, personal misfortunes....

Almost all traceable to man. Pollution, personal greed...even technology. Most people have milivolts upon milivolts of electrical energy flowing THROUGH them...radios, cell phones, TV, wifi....from the moment they were conceived. Is it any wonder cancer is so rampant?

There are those who complain that God isn’t being fair; why doesn’t he just stop suffering, he IS God isn’t He? There’s a simple illustration for why it isn't that simple.

Think of a person being robbed in a back-alley, the robber shoots the victim, the victim dies. Now God can of course stop this situation from taking place, but think about what he has to do in order to achieve that. He has to literally remove by force, the robber’s desire to hurt the victim, or at least the robber’s greed for the victim’s belongings. Fact of the matter is, God created us to be companions to Him, not puppets. The robber had the freedom, granted by God to all creation, to make the choice to hurt the victim. It wasn’t God’s choice for the victim to suffer; it was the robber’s choice. God allowed it to happen not because He can’t stop it, but because he created us to be able to choose.

Sometimes we are so quick to blame God for our pain that we completely forget that it was obviously us who caused the problem. Who builds a house in tornado valley and gets surprised when their house is destroyed by a tornado? Who builds a sandcastle on a beach and becomes angry when their castle falls from high tide?

In the same way, what right do we have to blame God for things that are clearly our own fault? If you entered a relationship that you had uneasy feelings about, why do you blame God when you break up? If you didn’t study, why do you blame God for lousy marks?

I know there are situations when questioning, and perhaps genuine doubt, is justified, but my point is clear; take a look at what you just did before you start pointing fingers, especially at God of all beings.