So the question - Does God introduce hardship-difficulty-suffering etc...? Consider a perspective. Adam and Eve have just been put in the garden. They are standing there without history, no parents, no memory, no past, just there. One minute they were not and then they were. Two adults in a world previously unknown to them. God gives them each other (marriage), a job (work the garden), enjoyment (food and things "pleasing to the eye) and trial (hardship). Their trial (testing, not temptation) was the freedom "you are free to eat from any tree in the garden" except for the tree of knowledge. So, their suffering was their decision (God does not make it for them) to believe (have faith) in what God said (if you eat of it you will die) or ignore God and do their own thing (See Gen. 3). God built the dilemma into their world. He did not tempt them to eat (Satan did that) but he did present them with the choice. The choice was a dilemma and we only have part of Eve's decision making process in Genesis 3(I assume it is only part). The mental and spiritual struggle to obey was by God's design. He created them, informed them, warned them and let them go. They had the hardship, suffering, difficulty of deciding.
POINT: Hardship, suffering (excluding temptation) was part of God's created order. If we suffer it is natural..expected...normal...Foree
About Me
- Foree
- I am Foree Grove. I have been a preacher since 1972. It has been a long time. Mostly I am just Foree. I have a wonderful life. God has been so kind and gracious to me. I like hunting, fishing, golfing being with Dana. My best friends are my boys, David and Stephen. There is my wife of 36 years. She is the answer to my question of what life is about. She is the blessing of God flowing out of his grace for me. Her name is Dana and she is the best.
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4 comments:
HEY! I found your blog! nanana boo boo Is it hot in CS? were burnin up! When it cools off and gas prices go down Ill come visit for some wings! Big Hugs, whit
I understand about suffering when you sin (like Adam & Eve). I struggle with suffering when we have not sinned yet someone suffers. The suffering of children is the worst and challenges my faith the most.
So what was the original sin exactly? And what was the knowledge they were made aware that ejected them from the "Garden"?
Does this benevolent God have so little temperment that this thing they did was so horrific as to expel them from a paradise? What the heck was the issue? I want to know so that I don't practice it so I maybe stay in the clear.
And this is a God of forgiveness? Did I miss something in translation?
Dekinblue: The issue was not the act of eating a certain food God denied them. The issue which prompted their expulsion was faithlessness. Adam and Eve did not trust God, they did not believe what he said was true. The "original sin" was disbelief.
God is forgiving, Adam and Eve lived on, but God cannot tolerate unbelief.."without faiht it is impossible to pleae God (Heb 11:6)."
Foree
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