Yesterday in Bible class I had another one of my "disgusted with God" moments, but it worked out for me. We were discussing the last reigns of the Kings before the Babylonian captivity. We have spent many weeks discussing the long list of kings of Judah and Israel. A few of them came out looking fairly decent, but mostly they looked worse than an American politician paying off the Taliban. They were wicked men who turned from God, some even replacing Him with other gods in Yahweh's temple. Then you get to Josiah. This guy was so on fire for God that he destroyed all of the other gods, their high places, their temples, even their places in people's homes. He went out of Judah's boundaries and did the same in Israel. He was a great king in the ways that seemed to matter to God before. Then Josiah was killed in battle and the throne of David seems to be over. A couple of Josiah's sons reign, but they are puppets for Pharoah, as well as being evil as their ancestors had been. Then the Jews are carted off to Babylon. You see what disgusted me was that God could let the evil men reign for long periods of time, if they just would slightly turn toward him. Call out to God in your time of trouble and he will take care of you. Now a good guy comes along and he gets taken out and the nation destroyed. Then I started looking at the bigger picture. It had been prophesied that Babylon would arise and destroy the nations for the way they had turned from their Father. God had to keep his word in order to be God. But in allowing Josiah to so completely turn the people away from their gods and back toward the Lord, perhaps when they were taken to Babylon the people would cry out to God again. You see, the Jews had so completely abandoned God that they didn't even know the law anymore before Josiah. If they had been taken captive then, they may not have been able to call out to God, simply because they didn't know him. If they couldn't call out to God, the nation would be completely annihilated, since it was their faith in the Lord that made them a nation. If that had happened, we would never have had Jesus. Disgust was now gone. Praise and adoration to the Father who can see so much more than I will ever be able. My sincerest apologies Father.