i was reading in genesis this week and came across an interesting story. it seemed that abraham was married to a hottie so, upon their moving to egypt and fearing for his life, he lied about her being his wife and told everyone she was his sister. abraham (who actually was still abram at this time) and his wife were treated very well and were given lots of gifts. after God caused bad things to happen to the king, the king found out the truth and sent abraham and his wife and all their new possessions back to where they came from.
ok, now i would ask - was it God's will for Abraham to lie about his wife and give her to live with the king? did God need for the egyptians to give Abraham all of those gifts of livestock, and gold, and food and so on because he (God) needed some help? could God not provide for Abraham outside of this scam?
my personal feeling is that God could provide anything, anytime, anywhere, anyway he wants to do it and i am guessing that most of you reading this would agree. i would also venture an opinion that the Father many times works in spite of us and not necessarily through us in order to accomplish his holy mission. many times this working in spite of us is misunderstood as working through us. the trauma is sometimes easily overshadowed by the slightest positive reaction. a large scale example would be the new plant life that sprung up from the mt st helens explosion or the way america "came back to God" after 9/11. the tiny positive results never justified the huge destruction that caused it.
ok, here's the point.
all my life i have been frustrated by believers using works of God to support their latest dumb ass idea. just like in the story of abraham, God can work good even through lies, laziness, or ignorance. you pick the downfall, God knows how to get the glory. BUT - all that being said, is it God's will for the lies, the laziness, or the ingorance to happen? of course not. or at least in my own understanding it isn't. you see just because people pray more or kiss and make up after a fight or whatever, that doesn't mean that what caused that to happen was from God. as believers we should be wary of anything that happens in the name of God that is not in the character of God. true we are all sinful humans trying to understand a holy and pure God and we will make mistakes, but let's just be careful to not tie our mistakes to his holiness simply because his goodness allows his glory to be revealed in whatever stupid things we do.
