In God's Image?

By Norma Zager

"... Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth ..." Genesis 9:16

A couple I have known most of my life lost their young son to a hit and run driver. Questions need to be answered once again, and no one can legitimately explain to me why God lets these things happen.

Of all the questions that plague me about the state of being, one of the foremost thoughts I cannot reconcile is why man glorifies God and then ignores Him?

Just to play the devil's advocate, I believe there are only two ways to adequately assess the whole God/man relationship.

Either man created God or God created man. Either way it just ain't working.

If man created God and endowed Him with limitless power over the universe, it is an indisputable fact the laws and qualities man gave himself in God's name are ignored and maligned.

Why create Ten Commandments just to daily break them?

Why give the world morals and laws if they become more irrelevant every moment?

Man may have created God, but he also chooses to ignore his tenets. He also included a loophole or two to allow him to indulge his darker side with no punishment.

If the other is true and God created man, with all due respect to the Lord, He did a really poor job. Aside from the obvious amazing technology of the human species, the genius of brain function, man refuses to even use any intelligence.

Each day on planet earth it becomes more obvious the battle between good and evil is markedly tipped in the devil's favor.

Man seems to choose evil intentions and deeds and blatantly casts out goodness through rationalization and arrogance. Good people even attempt to justify bad deeds in an attempt to make them comprehensible.

Although there have been no widely reported visits from God on earth lately, and the subtlety with which He displays His presence is largely ignored or explained through dumb luck or man's own abilities to perform miracles, He is here.

In Biblical times, when He showed Himself more readily to the masses through various means like parting seas, burning bushes and as many believe sending His son, it was still not enough to instill enough fear in man's heart to shun evil. At the very moment Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments, man was busily breaking them.

So shall we accept man created God only to spend his time explaining him away with the advent of every new miracle and new inspiration. Where is the sense?

Since time began man learned the benefit of rationalizing his bad behavior. Now, he has raised it to an art form.

Adding the caveat of choice or free will to the mix was a brainstorm that almost worked, until it became apparent more and more men would choose evil. So much so that the Lord was forced to send a son to earth to absolve man's sins. Then man wrote the Book of Revelations to explain, literally, that since man cannot inhibit the dark side of his nature and will ultimately incur only destruction of the world he inhabits, there must be hope of goodness winning over the universe.

We hear constantly that the grand design opts for the triumph of good over evil. This gave man the hope that ultimately right would prevail. When that belief went south, man created karma to deal with the sad truth that evil couldn't care less about its own sins.

Not working yet, okay let's push an afterlife. The bad will be punished out of our sight. We must believe that those who spend their lives on earth as purveyors of the devil will suffer the pangs of eternal damnation. Since no one has come back from hell to explain the experience first hand, I can only imagine it is akin to driving the 405 freeway at rush hour throughout eternity.

The last thing I seek to convey through my words is a lack of faith in the glory or power of the Almighty. Or make light of the grievous sins of the human spirit. However, when no fear exists that sin will incur God's wrath, how can man make the system work?

After the shocking murders at Fort Hood and Orlando this week, the consistently evil and disgusting antics of politicians and the continual murders throughout the world in the name of one's chosen deity, I cannot reconcile the belief any god would give man free will knowing man would choose evil any day of the week.

Man's worst flaw by far is using God as an excuse to kill. Creating excuses for killing and murdering in the Lord's name is no more than a convenient way of skirting the rules.

The Fort Hood killer shouted "Allahu Akbar" (god is great) as he gunned down innocent people. What's the point? If he believed his god was great why submit to the devil? Does eliciting Allah's name bless an act of sinful and unimaginable proportion?

It must be little consolation to the families who lost loved ones and continue to lose them daily that at the end of days goodness will prevail.

I am certain all of us alive would prefer it prevail at this moment on earth, in our own lifetime.

I would suggest God perform miracles to announce his presence, but He does that every moment and it hasn't helped. Man's evil deeds increase to unimaginable heights each second, we need miracles that will blow evil out of the water.

I would offer that perhaps an epiphany of some sort might shake men's souls and deliver them into their better selves toward the future. I have difficulty imagining what a deed of that proportion might entail, but I know God is capable of creating one that will work.

My question is why hasn't He as yet?

Why create a creature so evil when you are in control? It's almost as if you made a product you knew would break immediately.

I am certain I am not the only one who asks these questions when something evil and horrific happens. I am also certain that although we have numerous reasons to explain away man's bad behavior, we are never truly satisfied with the answers. How can we be when the acts are always far more egregious than the mind can conjure and man is ever achieving new lows?

If there is an Afterlife, and I cannot guarantee with certainty one exists, Heaven is in small danger of overcrowding. Hell, however, must be as big as eternity. I imagine that's why there are no limits on space in the galaxy, every inch will be necessary to fill the void with the devil's minions.

The righteous and true believers are in short supply and battling to stay alive every moment. It is way passed time someone step up to the plate and put the fear of God in all men. Lord knows man needs it and must pray it comes soon.

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun..." ~Ecclesiastes 1:9

In the series "Postcards from Israel," Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel's on the ground, Zager's counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related - the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts - and so is this "point - counter-point" presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives. Feel free to share with others.

© Postcards from Home, November, 2009

Contact: aribussel@gmail.com