Today we reach the great story where Abraham negotiates with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham begins at fifty and ends at ten and each time he appears to win. God agrees not to destroy the place if that many innocent people are there.
I say Abraham appears to win because in really God knew before he ever started the negotiation that there were no innocent people left in those towns. So why go through this exercise?
Abraham, like all of us really, is still learning about God, and so like a parent and a child God allows Abraham to go through the exercise. Abraham learns not only about the mercy of God, but his own sense of justice and compassion is deepened as he finds himself fighting for the innocent.
How often do we make the same error and try to bargain with God particularly when we find ourselves in pain? We forget that God understand the situation better than we ever could. And knowing the situation as only God can, he is going to do not what we want, but what is best. Once more it comes down to trust and the call for us to pray from the bottom of our hearts four simple words: thy will be done.
