To Ken Besig
Reader comment on item: Did Divine Intervention Fell Ariel Sharon?
in response to reader comment: For a religious Jew, every act and event is by the Hand of God

Submitted by Abijah (United States), Jan 5, 2008 at 13:11

Your point of view comes dangerously close to fatalism. While i agree that everything, without exception, that happens must pass before God first, God does not change and He reveals His plans to His friends. As He did to Abraham, so He does today. Abraham was a great man because He believed God; he took God at his word before circumcision and before the Law was given. But Abraham was a just a man like you or i am, aside from God's promises. He was called a "friend" of God and God said, "Shall I keep from Abraham the thing I am about to do?"

God loves each of his children, Jew and non-Jew with an unqualified and total love that can't be comprehended. Every man has the potential to be as great as Abraham and a friend of God by taking God at His word. God is not the impediment to such a friendship: it is our individual decision and choice to hold God at what we deem a comfortable distance choosing a measure of autonomy over loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, strength, and our neighbor as ourself.

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