My mom often tells me that because of man’s sinful nature and our actions from that nature God is more saddened by us then anything. Sure he loves us eternally and is occasionally proud on top of that, but more often than not I do think he is saddened by us. In our journey through Exodus in class I came across Exodus 32 where Moses takes his time on the mountain with God and the people get anxious and impatient because of it and ask Aaron to build them a golden image for them to worship, because let’s be honest that is what we all do when we get bored, which is sad to say because I do not mean that entirely sarcastic. They want a new God, one that works on their time scale and who is right there for them at all times, even after all God has done for them! I have to go back to Genesis 6: 6 where God regretted making man and was saddened by that. So I have to think that every time the Hebrews mess up and they mess up often and usually big at that, i.e. there are no little screw ups with them, God is more sad than anything. There has to be that immense annoyance factor for God to have these people he has created, whom he has set apart, and taken care of every step of the way go the opposite direction of him and his ways. Everything they have asked for he has given them; food, freedom, water, homes, family, kids, etc. So in this immense sadness I have to say is it any wonder to us that God takes the actions he does when these things take place. Should it be any surprise to us that he floods the whole Earth, that he makes the Hebrews wonder 40-80 years in the desert, put them in exile, etc. As a half-Jew I often hear and recognize the question “why us” especially in recent history with the Holocaust and even more recent with just the everyday normal non-ending violence that occurs in Israel and I won’t say God was and/or is the cause of all of that. But I will say that I would not be surprised if he were. I suppose the only people who could really sympathize with God in this matter on any level at all are parents. You have a child and you raise them the “right” way teaching them all that you know to be “good” and at times they go the complete opposite way from what they know and what you taught them. The agony, anger, disappointment, annoyance is all there for parents. I almost hate to imagine then that that is infinitely magnified within God as we are his creations. It is more so than birth for him, for he brought us out of nothing and molded us and shaped us, made us who we are and for us to rebel against that in whatever way we might has got to be pure anguish, among other things, for him. I literally do not think that we could ever even begin to get close to knowing or understanding such a practically almost depthless sadness. More so I do not think I ever want to know such sadness.
Kalos Elpis
Kelly M. Doolittle
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