Wow, here’s a blog I meant to post more than a year ago.
This is actually an e-mail I wrote a friend who was going through a hard time, and I think I actually encouraged myself in the process…because it’s something I have struggled with over the years.  My email to her:

Hey, I was thinking about what you said.  I think that way a lot.  Like: “God, you knew this was going to happen, but you let it happen anyway” …and “if you’d never let that happen, I wouldn’t be the way I am” (or I wouldn’t have done what I did).
Actually, just the other day, someone said something about Adam and Eve being very much the same way… “God, the woman you made for me enticed me to eat the fruit” (and Eve:) “The serpent in the garden deceived me, or I never would have eaten.”
(And I would take it a step further and think, yeah, and God made up the rule about the fruit in the first place but knew they were going to break it.)
It’s hard sometimes not to want to put blame on God, especially when you think he’s angry with you about whatever happened (that could quite possibly have been avoided if HE hadn’t allowed ______).  Now, I’m not saying God is the cause of all things, but he definitely allows whatever actually ends up happening.
I’m sure Adam and Eve had to go through that tension for the rest of their lives: “You know, God let this happen…” and on the other hand: “We’re such rotten sinners, he’s probably still so disappointed in us.”  It’s a constant contradiction that I’m sure they struggled with, being completely human.  I wish the Bible recorded how they handled that.

It gives me comfort to know that I don’t look at their story and think , “Yeah, God probably didn’t even want to talk to them anymore; he clearly stayed mad at them.” Cause I don’t think he stayed angry with them, and especially not where he’d be disgusted if they tried talking to him or getting close to him again.
Often times, I think of myself totally differently than how I see other people in cases like that.
I think we tend to look at ourselves and think, “God is so mad at me/disappointed in me.” and yet when others sin and say God is angry with them, I’m like, “it’s ok… He understands and wants to help you through this.” I think we’re harder on ourselves than anyone else would be… including God.
On the other hand, sometimes we “give God too much credit” for the wrong things that happen (ME, first and foremost).  He clearly allows wrong things to happen, even knowing we’ll make bad decisions (and really big messed up decisions), and yet he seems so calm when it happens…waiting everything out to see how we react to it and work with him to make it better in the long run.  Not meaning to trivialize sin… but to know that when we do sin (because he knows we sometimes will), he’s there waiting for the repentance and a call for help.
I sometimes get annoyed with God for this…and other times I’m grateful that, like Adam and Eve, he knew what was going to happen…and after they sinned, he kept on loving them and was content with them obeying him *from that point on.* Cause it was all they could do.

 

*my side note (not part of the e-mail, but reading this again, having gone through several decisions that I’m pleased with a year later:)

Maybe the thoughts could be shifted from “Why did God?!” to “What will God…if I trust that he means good for me…and what if I (let him)?”