A crux on Good and Evil, traced to First Causes.

"...thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth which God shall give..."  -1 Samuel 2:32

So the pastor was speaking about God chastening us, and I was thinking of all the promises that would seem broken, if he provided our wrongs, along with our items of providence.

Would it seem that God has a mean streak, that he tests and tempers us with troubles?  Its like the saying "he who made kittens, put snakes in the grass".

But the truth of this statement is that God does have a good plan for each of us, because He loves us.

The crux of Him providing both evil and good to the believer is in the fact that God created it all: he created the evil that forsook Him to establish his own kingdom opposite God.

He created the challenger, and had that challenger Faith, Hope and Love, would not the world be so much the better these days?  If, and only if, that prince of the power of the air not turned against God, this would be heaven on Earth.

So ultimately, if we trace reasons and causes all the way back to creation, we find the God is the author of all, as some say that everything is merely the thoughts of God: all of us, the world, the sun and stars, but the thoughts of God.

a modern beset canaanite.

Life had beaten him down, and, a confused man, he set not always upright, but took a few shortcuts.  His social circle practiced the same lifestyle, and they took shortcuts in regards to him.

Life waa fast, and love faster.  As quickly and heatedly as it came, it as quickly departed him.

Love came.

Devil took it.

Steady job?

Devil took it.

He would disrespect authority, and authority distrusted him; they were at odds, with mutual enmity.

Just as Job was set on, the devil was just getting started in his unhappy life, but he lived, of course, true to his first instincts, and his appetites, and maybe even loved.

Some people look at those wayward anticipating the joy of them returning to the fold; it could very well happen, and as they still live, hope lives.

The devil at a control panel pushing buttons, finding no deterrence, no resistance, and the fundamental kerflopple of the thing, what was original sin, to know good and evil, but he, our query, in a kind of confusion, marks the time and circumstance differently.

Mankind gained understanding, but the understanding was darkened by Satan at the cost of eternity itself.

We, mystically, foggily, chime the refrain as Christ once did,"not as I would, but as You would, Lord'.