When We Hurt God (pt1)

Growing up I always saw my dad as invincible. He was as tough as they came. John Wayne was a boy scout compared to my father. Oh, don't get me wrong; my father was anything but Superman. I witnessed my father suffer multiple back injuries. I saw him limping around after 14 hours on his flat feet and then have to walk a mile home after work. I saw him after he was "jumped" at the store where he worked by three angry riff-raff. I saw him, believe it or not, get frostbite on his hand in the middle of the summer. I saw him fall down a flight of concrete stairs while he was terribly sick with pneumonia. I saw my dad almost rupture his Achilles. I saw my dad in a neck brace following a serious neck injury. I saw my dad's arm in a sling due to him blowing his rotator cuff. I have seen my father collapse and bust his head during an athsma attack. I am telling you, I have seen my dad be ANYTHING but invincible. I do have a point to all of this so let me get right to it. The WORST injury I have ever seen my dad have is the one I am responsible for. I was 7 or so. My younger brother and I were running around in the house despite my father's instruction to stop. It was a Sunday Morning. We were getting ready for church. My dad was boiling a large pot of eggs for the Sunday School "party" during their sunday school hour. As my father was attempting to transfer the large pot of boiling water from the stove to the sink, my brother and I ran between he and the sink and under the extremely hot pot of water. Instinctively, my father pulled the pot towards him and all of the hot water escaped the pot and found its landing all over my father's stomach, legs and loins. Instantly, my father was covered with 2nd degree burns and blisters already forming from the seething hot water. I saw my father writhing in pain on the floor as he dropped to his knees and let out the most painful shriek I have ever heard. Looking at my father in so much pain was something I have never been able to forget. It was a pain that I inflicted on him. The deep seeded remorse and attempts at penance seemed insignificant at the moment. I caused my father to have extreme pain. The Children of Israel caused God pain as well. Sure, it wasnt with a boiling pot of water, but it was a pain that God deemed necessary to proclaim his affliction. I realize that God is a Spirit (John 4:23-24.) However, there is a term used as an example to bridge the pain that a spirit can feel in regards to human or physical pain. It is called "Anthromorphism." For an illustration: "He sat there like a bump on a rock." It is giving Human characteristics or responses to an object or to an inadamant object, in this case, an intangible being- namely God. Having this thought in mind, let me direct your attention to a passage of Scripture which lays out a brief but detailed diagnosis of God's pain which was inflicted by Israel and also by us today. Jeremiah 10:18-25

For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this once, and will distress them, that they may find it so. Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it. My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains. For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered. Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons. O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing. Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.