An Epiphany

So I was reading on some message boards and came across this thread which really made me think about the age old question:

"If God cares so much about us as humans why does he let kids starve in Africa?"

Its a valid question that a lot of posters on that site above weighed in their thoughts. One poster who happens to be my good friend said this:

"There's just no way to know it's god. I think humankind's assumptions that god is just, merciful, cares at all, etc. is more a deep-seated hope than anything.

We pretend that we know what kind of being god is (all-wise, all-knowing, just, merciful, etc.), then rationalize instances where god breaks out of character (He lets kids starve in Africa because of XYZ). In my opinion, we don't know anything about god. But to each his/her own."

He makes a good point that in reality is true. We don't know anything about God's character. The Old Testament God was vengeful and angry. He even made bets with the devil about someone's soul

I was thinking about this last night when I had my epiphany. This is why we need to have faith in Jesus Christ. Faith that what he was saying was what God truly is. We generally look at the sermon on the mount as good teaching for our lives but another way is to see how he was dispelling the notion of the angry, vengeful God presented in the Old Testament (His audience for his Sermon).

Some of his sayings:

"God is Love"

"Ask and ye shall receive"

"what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

One of the reasons the first principle of the gospel is faith in Jesus Christ is that we have to believe that God is what Jesus said he was. We have to have faith that God cares about his children and while suffering exists it only is there for a time then it ends. I remember a conversation where people were talking about how horrible it would be to die being tortured or burning. But in reality it doesn't matter either way you are dead. This is analogous to human suffering. While someone suffer for 20 years may seem like a long time. When compared with how old the universe is and will be its just a spec.

Ok ... enough preaching for one night