Just who is GOD? What can HE do? What can’t HE do? What does HE allow? What does HE cause?

Who am I to even think about the answers to that?

Now, I know this is getting into some “deep” theological stuff.
The other night as we were continuing to read in Exodus, we got to GOD telling Moses HE was going to cause Pharaoh’s heart to be stubborn/be hardened. HE, GOD, was going to cause it. I just looked at Bri and said, right here-it says GOD is going to cause something that is going to cause pain and death. If GOD can cause something like that then, why in the world would people say HE won’t do that now? Later in the Old Testament, GOD wipes out people for Israel, lets Israel be defeated, and lets Israel defeat others. You have the whole book of Job and all the “discussions” that brings with what GOD allows and causes. We can go into the New Testament and all the persecutions of the early church and apostles.

I mean, I don’t expect an answer in a way, because who am I to say what GOD can and can’t do?
Because as our pastor said the other morning, once we say God is not sovereign in one thing, He is not sovereign in ANYTHING. He didn’t just wake up and say oh crap-look what those people did last night! Every little, teeny, tiny thing-God is in control.
There are many lines of thoughts like-
“GOD won’t do (this whatever) because it is against HIS nature”. But who defined HIS nature? (Meaning, I read a lot of things in the Bible that I don’t always understand. I can look it up and get 3 to 5 opinions on any one thing!)
“GOD can’t stop this because it is our free choice/free will”. Is that completely true though? Is there anything GOD really can’t do?? (meaning, if God could harden Pharaoh’s heart, did he have a free will there? Can my free will choice offset your free will choice so yours doesn’t happen?)
GOD has HIS wrath and HE has decided whom HE will use it against, but what we say of HIS character makes us ask why would HE use it at all? Why wouldn’t HE? Can I ever understand HIS plans?
You would think that even the 10 commandments would be easy to follow-
Do not murder. But then we say that murder is okay because we think this (what about the eye for an eye passage…).
Do no steal. Well, but its okay in this situation because you have to survive…

How and why do we make it so difficult??
It all seems as clear as mud.

I am also reading in Isaiah, and in chapter 45 God speaks to Cyrus (who is still a 150 years away) and says I am going to use you even though you don’t know me. God will use both those who know Him personally and those who don’t. Doesn’t that seem to be against the nature of GOD too?
In Isaiah 48:11 God says, “For my own sake, for My own sake, I will act; for how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another.”

It seems I don’t know much-the more I think I know, the less I do! How are we supposed to know or understand anything about GOD with all the different theologies out there, the theories, the misconceptions, the… And everyone is so convinced THEY are right.
But yet, we can’t go around just believing whatever we want to believe. There are people that study God’s word for a living-both those who believe and those who don’t, I would add. There is a part of me that just says they must know more than I do because that’s all they do do-study the Word of God.
There’s another line of thought that says whatever Jesus said is what God meant about everything, because Jesus only spoke and taught and knew what God said. BUT…WE take what Jesus said and say He meant this when He said that, or that is just dealing with this one situation or culture, or that was just for that time or…

Seems like there is about a zillion reasons to just throw God and the whole Bible out. What is it that keeps those who believe, believing? It is almost like this blind faith-I don’t know it all, I can’t know it all, I just know what I believe and what God is saying to me. But what if what He says to me isn’t what He says to you (we could take off on just one subject alone here i.e. baptism and go in how many different directions?)? I understand that humans are human, and yes, I believe we really do need some type of boundaries so we don’t go off and blasphemy God, steal His glory, or any of the other things He commands us to do/not do in the Bible. I haven’t looked into it all, but isn’t that what the early church was seeing and so that’s why the “Church” was formalized in the early couple hundreds AD? Isn’t that also why God gave all the rules to the Israelites in the wilderness?

Just how does all this work? Do I need to know? Do I need to understand it all? Is it a cop-out to say, well I don’t know exactly, I just believe this… Paul says to be always be prepared to have an answer… what if I don’t have an answer? It’s like sometimes I can just totally see why a non-believer doesn’t want to bother with God, how easy it would be to just say, that’s just crazy. It definitely DOES take more faith to believe in God than not to believe in Him!

There are a lot of things that I want to believe that God WON’T do…but I never want to say HE CAN’T do anything.

(Some of) what I do know though, is that GOD IS ALMIGHTY, GOD IS ALL POWERFUL, GOD IS SOVEREIGN, GOD IS GOD. GOD ISN’T ALWAYS SAFE, BUT HE IS GOOD.

Who am I compared to that?

(Sometimes I think I am pretty dumb for asking these questions out loud...)