Seeing Through the Fog

Little Rock has recently had a series of foggy mornings in December. Since we live just north of the Arkansas River, I guess we are more prone to get fog than other places throughout the city on chilly days. I gaze out the back door of our house, which overlooks Pinnacle Mountain to the far west, a ridge of trees to the South, and an ample amount of horizon each day. I often cannot see the mountain. Since our Bible Study group has been studying the Old Testament this fall, several of us in the group have been wrestling, like Jacob, with the theological idea of immutability. The Bible tells us that God is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow; yet we cannot see through the fog to see how this can be true.

What is troubling somehow to us is that God seems to be constantly trying new techniques to get the attention of those He created. For example, after the original sin in the Garden of Eden, God expels the couple out of the Paradise He created. As time goes on, He decides (after the first murder followed by many other sins) to destroy the people with a worldwide flood. When Noah and his wife and children survive to begin again, the cycle repeats itself. The Hebrews soon find themselves in slavery in Egypt, but they are soon free thanks to the leadership of Moses and his brother Aaron. When the people disobey, like Moses, who struck the rock instead of just speaking to it to obtain water, God punishes Moses by not allowing him to see the promised land. When Saul uses his reason and saves some of the best booty from a war, instead of killing all women, children, and animals, Saul loses the favor of God. When David sins with another man's wife, breaking one of the ten commandments, God allows the child born of that union to die. God gives humankind over 600 commands to keep in the Old Testament.

When we get to the New Testament, however, God has an entirely different persona. It appears that He has learned we humans simply cannot keep all of the laws precisely that He has set down for us. He becomes the God of love with the sacrifice of his only Son for the sake of the people. Christ reduces the previous 600+ laws down to two basic ones: love God and love our neighbor.

I do believe that God has always intended the best for us from the beginning. He wants to love us and to have an unbroken fellowship with us. In that respect, we see that God has had an unchangeable goal throughout the centuries. It seems, however, that his methods of reconciling us to Him are very changeable. Why can I not see through the fog to the majesty of the mountain more clearly?