33: Can God Do Bad?

I thought about something during church this weekend. I often do my best thinking during church. It's funny how that always seems to happen. I get my best story ideas from just sitting down and listening to people sing and talk.

Anyway, the question was: Can God really do bad? Does he bring misfortune purposely on people? Obviously, He did that when He sent the plagues to Egypt, but can He, in all His goodness and glory, send bad things to the righteous? He's God. Of course He can, but does that make it right, or consistent, with His character?

To me, it's unfair that God takes all the glory for the good stuff, but none of the credit for the bad. Maybe He does take responsibility for the bad, but I feel that Christianity, today, tends to not want to blame God for anything and attribute bad events and occurrences to "life."

As a true God, He must take all responsibility on the good, bad, luck, change, misfortune, etc. To only take the good is to be selfish. And God can't be selfish, can He? He is a jealous God, something I find amusing from time to time. But I thought jealousy was a bad thing, a sin. I thought that we weren't supposed to covet what other people had. It might have been commandment #6. So does that make jealousy okay? If God does it, it must be okay. We are striving to be god-like all the time and must, by principle, take His goodness and His not-so-goodness.

At the end of the day, I'll take God's love, patience, and compassion with a side of jealousy, anger, and judgment. Now that's a plate lunch I could surely eat.