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Our Own Folly

             A person’s own folly leads to their ruin, yet their heart rages against the Lord. (Proverbs 19:3)

                A man rages at God because the alcohol he’s consumed for decades has finally destroyed his liver. If God were a good God, alcohol in excess would do no harm. People move into an area near the sea where the land’s altitude is below sea level and when the tidal surge of a hurricane destroys their  homes and ruins their lives (in some cases for the second or third time), they rage at God. If God were a good God, there would be no hurricanes and their land would rise sufficiently that even if there were, the tidal surge would do no harm. People get out of their vehicles and stroll within feet of an American Bison and grumble in their hospital beds about how God could make fluffy cows with such rotten dispositions.  We raise boys with no good male role model, let them do whatever they want with no responsibility and no accountability, and celebrate violence in our entertainment, then complain that if God were a good God, He wouldn’t let there be evil people who shoot at kids in a school. Adam and Eve were told if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die, and they ate, and then Eve blamed the serpent and Adam blamed Eve and God.

                It has been going on since the beginning. Sometimes the things we do have quick or immediate consequences. We get drunk and wake up in the wrong bed, or in a back alley, and pregnant. We neglect our studies and fail an exam or course. We decide to accelerate our vehicle toward a pedestrian who happens to have a gun and end up dead. Sometimes, the consequences take more time. We jog regularly for years, and get arthritis in the knees. We fail to save money and end up poor.

                And in the same breath that we accuse God of being a bad god, we claim victimhood. Our decisions should not have turned out badly for us. Maybe the same decisions on someone else’s part should turn out badly for them, but not for us. How dare God claim to be a good God, a loving God, and cause these things to happen?

                I am not suggesting that everything that happens to us is a direct result of our own foolishness. My goal isn’t to blame the victim. But we do make choices that turn out to be bad, and it is foolishness to blame God for them. It’s what we do, but it’s foolish.

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