"My Front Porch Looking In"

This has taken me a long time to compose. I write something and am not pleased with  it, think it doesn't make sense nor says what I am trying to convey and leave it alone for awhile. I come back to it,  try again, and am still not satisfied. I hope somehow God can make this make as much sense on paper as it does in my head. 

As I have been reading I have been thinking a lot about the attributes of God. I look at the story of Noah and see destruction and chaos, God wiping out all he created because it was not functioning as he had created it to be. Joshua, conquering land after land, destroying city after city, instructed by God to destroy in his name, 'do not leave alive anything that breathes.' For SEVEN YEARS Joshua and the Israelite army massacre town after town killing women, children, anything with air in it's lungs and burning what remained. I look at the story of Babel and see more wrath and anger that lead to chaos and destruction. 

I see wrath, anger, and destruction in these stories. God was angry at a people that were doing evil and not living according to His will. He wiped them out, covered all he had created, that had become chaotic, with more chaos = water. (water to God's people was a representation of chaos. The people were afraid of water and it's unknowns and unpredictability.) Later on, humanity following the flood resolved to build a city with a tower 'with it's top in the heavens.' God sent confusion and created chaos once again. Joshua and the Israelite army? What was not chaotic about such massacre? 

While I look at these things and begin to see running themes of chaos and destruction, anger and wrath, could it be that God see's something different? God may have wiped out what he created, but he also spared the most righteous among the people at the time. He then went as far as making a promise with the humanity he destroyed. Joshua was instructed to go to the land which was given to the Children of Israel, fulfilling His promise to Moses to 'be with you.' Just because our circumstances change, does not mean God's attributes do. God is, was, is still, and will always, be loving, forgiving, faithful, compassionate, gentle, kind, and the list could go on, it just depends on our perspective. 

So then, how is God looking in on the middle east? illegal immigration? Those too are his people. What is His agenda? Jonah was called to go east, he went west because Nineveh was like the captain of the enemy against God's people. While we see a storm, God is just trying to get Jonah's attention. Jonah bails, for all intent and purpose, committing suicide, but God already has a rescue boat in place to swallow him up. 


Always wish the budget wasn't quite so tight? How do you know you would be a good steward of wealth if you had more of it? Never satisfied no matter how many miles you run or crunches you do? How do you know you would not have the right intensions for wanting those six pack abs? No matter how hard you work, you never get the position? What would you do with the position once you got there? What would happen under you watch? Could it be God is protecting you from something you do not have the perspective to see? 

It is not about what we want, or even about what we know, but about what God is trying to show us. It all depends on our perspective.