Trying to Understand God

Yesterday, I was foolish enough to try to understand world religions.

Today, my foolishness increases to trying to understand God.

Let's go back to the very beginning.  God created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden.
It was already doomed but to increase their risk of failure, God allowed a serpent to walk about tempting whomever it please.  Long story short.  The serpent tempts Eve.  Eve tempts Adam.  Now as the parents to all mankind, we are born sinful into a fallen world.  God kicks Adam and Eve out of the Garden.  The serpent slithers around on the ground like a snake.  An angel is put on guard to prevent anyone from entering the Garden again.

Adam toils the soil.  Eve bears children with labor pains birthing Cain and Abel.  Again, long story short.  Cain and Abel grow up.  Both make sacrifices to God.  God is pleased with Abel's offering.  Cain is mad and murders Abel.

Here is my first understanding of the love of God.  Does God kill Cain for killing his brother Abel?  Of course not.  Actually, he puts a mark on Cain's head and forbids anyone to harm him.  Abel is not dead.  Abel is alive in heaven.

Move forward to the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar.  The first world religion is started with Father Abraham.  The Jewish faith is started with Abraham who He refers to as His friend.  Sarah doubts God's promise to provide an heir to become the chosen nation and has her husband sleep with her maid, Hagar.  Hagar births Ishmael.  Thirteen years later, God's promise comes to fruition and Issac is born.  Conflict between Hagar and Sarah results in Sarah forcing Hagar and Ishmael to flee to the desert.

Hagar and Ishmael are waiting to die in the desert.  Hagar does not pray for herself but for her son.  She begs the God of Abraham to allow Ishmael to live.  An Angel shows up to Hagar to let her know that her prayer has been answered.  Thus, the second world religion is started through Ishmael.

Here is another understanding of the love of God.  Hagar did not pray to her Egyptian gods.  She prayed to the God of Abraham.  The God of Abraham blessed her prayer by having her son be the father of many nations and a second world religion was established through his lineage.

God does not stop there.  The entire old testament points to a Savior. 
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life."

This really is the only thing someone needs to understand about God.  He loves you.  He loves me.

There is only one thing that God wants us to understand about ourselves.  We need to die to ourselves.

"I have been crucified in Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me!"

If Jesus Christ was living in each of us, there is no way that a young daughter and a wife would have had to watch their father/husband killed in cold blood.  Even if his name was Osama Bin Laden.

May the God of Abraham and the God of Ishmael have mercy on us all!