Who's To Blame??

I was just taking a momentary break from work today and read the latest post on this website dealing with America, and it made me think: Who's to blame?

I'm reminded of an email forward I read one time shortly after the Columbine School shootings. In the email, someone was speaking to God and questioning God why He allowed it to happen. God responded in the email that He wanted to stop it, but we wouldn't allow Him into public schools.

We're so quick here to attribute all the successes in our life, our company's life, and our country's life to ourselves and blame anything else, often God, for our failures. But as Isaiah reminds us, who are we to question God?

9 "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,
to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
'What are you making?'
Does your work say,
'He has no hands'?

10 Woe to him who says to his father,
'What have you begotten?'
or to his mother,
'What have you brought to birth?'

11 "This is what the LORD says—
the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:
Concerning things to come,
do you question me about my children,
or give me orders about the work of my hands?

12 It is I who made the earth
and created mankind upon it.
My own hands stretched out the heavens;
I marshaled their starry hosts. (Isaiah 45:9-12)

I think that while we are often quick to question God, I think more often than not it is ourselves, not God, that prevents us from having the kind of life we say we want. In Mark 6:4-6, Jesus is in Bethlehem. The scripture reads, "Jesus said to them, 'Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.' He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith." Compare that with numerous other accounts of miracles preformed by Jesus in the New Testament, like Matthew 15:21-28 where Jesus meets a Canaanite woman. Because of her display of faith, Jesus said, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Now, could Jesus have healed more people in His hometown. Well, since God is all powerful, I suppose He could have. But as an article I came across on the internet said, "Jesus could have forced people to be healthy, but it's not his methodology to force people against their will. God (and by extension Jesus) wait for us as humans to hear their knock on our heart's door and let them in to work. Satan, on the other hand, would use a wrecking crane on our heart's door, set the lawn on fire, mutilate cattle, and anything else to get our attention and do things to us." I think there is a lot of truth to it.

Is it bad to question what may happen? Not necessarily. But don't question God. He knows what He is doing and He is Sovereign. I know in my own life anyway, God's not to blame for all the things I've done wrong. I am. And in the state that our country is in today, I don't think that's God's fault either.