Don’t Blame God
Holy Cow! Or should I say, “Holy Bull Sh*t.” Don’t blame God for the actions of bad people.
Two very different stories this week seemed to blame God for tragic outcomes. The cornerstone of Biblical Christianity is the notion of free will. God can protect us from ourselves, but He won’t impose His will if we are hell-bent on ignoring Him.
Free Will
The first one was about a young woman’s struggle with the loss and regret of abortion. She lamented that God did not stop her. The post did expound enough to include the concept of free will and the consequences of our own choices. Basically, the idea that God should have somehow stopped this from happening is a prevalent concept.
We can convince ourselves that what we are doing is A-ok in God’s eyes, but a quick check of the Scriptures would tell us differently. We ALL transgress the commandments of God. Some sins are just more visible than others. Absolutely no one is completely sinless, except the One and Only begotten Son. We call Him Jesus.
Our hearts are deceitfully wicked and no one can fully know it. We can check in with God by prayer, but to know His will for our lives, we need the Word. The Scripture is clear that we are not to intentionally kill people.
Which brings to mind the second story that people are using to blame God. The horrifying mass murder at the nightclub in Orlando. For a preacher to say that it was somehow warranted and God specifically targeted the people injured and killed there is the epitome of arrogance.
If you were to apply that logic to Sandy Hook or the Oklahoma bombing, wherein children were targeted, does it hold up? Are you willing to attribute that to God?
In the case of the young woman suffering from the loss and pain of abortion, she asked for God’s intervention, but she continued through the process. From driving to the abortion vendor’s, to parking, to going inside, to paying, to filling out forms and signing waivers, to entering the room and getting on the table. She could have backed out. I’m not pitiless. I really grieve for her, but I think we cannot blame God.
Our Consequences
We are free agents. I have made MANY terrible decisions. You probably have too. Some sins are more visible than others. Just because someone is obviously living contrary to God’s Word, doesn’t mean someone else is living perfectly compliant to it. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory (perfection) of God.
The person who entered and killed people is to blame for their actions. That is to say, the killer used his free will to open fire in the club. He was most certainly not acting on God’s behalf.
We each have a responsibility to use our free will to bring goodness to the earth as long as we are here. I pray for the families and especially for the injured, that they would recover and that they would get through the difficulty with God’s help.
If we submit to His way of doing things He can help us, but that doesn’t mean that we are free from the consequences of decisions made by ourselves or other free agents. Bad stuff happens to anyone. Life is just hard, but God is good.
I invite Him every day. I hope you will too.