Is it all God's Fault?

"Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; 
   you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. 
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? 
   Why are you silent while the wicked 
   swallow up those more righteous than themselves? "

-Habakkuk 1:13

Only a few moments after getting deferred from college, I couldn't help but think how unfair life was. Not because I didn't make it: it was the fact that my friends made it and I hadn't. I had put the same amount of effort, done the same deeds, and even put my own spin on it—for what? Simply smacked right back down on my ass, and watching everyone else around me grin and laugh in happiness.

Unfair. At least, I was a Christian right? None of my atheist friends deserved their success. I didn’t think this, but that was exactly how I felt. And like any good, fake Christian, I turned to the Bible and read the passages where God promised fire and vengeance upon our enemies, and found that simple verse.

It was Habakkuk’s complaint. In my head, I had thought, “Perfect! Someone else with a grudge against God. Let’s see how it turns out.”

And looking at it, I knew it had to do with me. After all, wasn’t I the innocent one? I had been swallowed up by the wicked. And it was all God’s fault.

And I’m laughing now because that would make my friends the “wicked”, and not making college a horrible crime. Even I know that this is ridiculous. Unfair; yes. But, am I really one of the innocent being killed by the wicked? I’d have to be abusing power anti-psychotics for that to happen.

But it really did show me something horrible about myself. I had never noticed before that behind the jubilance and glee my friends showed, they hid their own sadness of my status. Had I ever considered what other people felt for once? Or had I simply assumed that they, like me, would be completely preoccupied with their own happiness rather than others’?

It was shocking. There was a reason they never talked about it. I, in my deluded, depressed state, had assumed that their silence was their apathy. Little did I know that their silence was one of retreat; giving me utter silence to help me heal. Even if they were atheists, they sure as hell were acting more Christianly than I ever had.

And so, looking at this passage, I need to ask, who is the wicked person swallowing up the innocent again? I seem like the part more and more. I took their kindness and responded with transparent false glee revealing a dark depression. I threw away their feelings and wanted only one thing: other people’s attention for my troubles. Did I care at all about what they felt? Of course not. And in my sheltered, Asian, high-school teenage life, I can almost think of no worse crime.

Well of course, besides stealing, murdering, lying and having fun. But that’s a story for another day. But in light of the Christmas spirit, I ask myself one simple question: why does God tolerate me?  I suppose that’s what true love really is.