Wrath

If you do something wrong, should God punish you?

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelt the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.  As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. - Genesis 8:20-22

God seemed to be really involved in our lives at the beginning, from Creation on.

He shows us his displeasure with us as well as helping us defeat our enemies.  He is on our side, but He also gives us our just reward and punishment.

But then we get to Noah and the flood and things seem to change.  After God destroys all life except for the residents of the ark, He takes a hands off attitude.

Our indiscretions will be dealt with later, not now while we are alive.

That's good news, right?  But there is a catch.  If God takes a hands-off approach, what about all the evil in the world?  Who is going to take action against that?

Does it become our problem, or will God still give us help when we need it?

We Christians believe that God is always with us.  Having received the Holy Spirit in baptism, we are forever linked with God and He is living in us, guiding and strengthening us, so we can survive this world.

And when we are overwhelmed, we come together, for where two or three are gathered in Christ's name, He is with us.

So, we have the tools we need to deal with the evil in the world, and through God, we can overcome the forces that lead us astray.

So, I guess the message here is that we need each other.  We can do more together than we can alone, and throughout it all, God is with us to help us.

That's good news, and it sure beats incurring His wrath.

More to come...