964. Is God concerned with each of our actions to reward or punish us? Aren’t most of such actions insignificant to God?
“God’s laws apply to all your actions, and if you violate them it is your fault. When a person violates one of those laws, God does not say, ‘You have been gluttonous, I will punish you for it.’ However, God has set a limit: diseases, and even death, are the consequences of overstepping that limit. Any time you are disciplined, it is a result of violating a law. Everything happens that way.”
All our actions are subject to God’s laws. Any wrongdoing on our part, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to us, is a violation of those laws. When we experience the consequences of such violations, we can only blame ourselves, as we are the sole architects of our happiness or misery, as is shown in the following narrative.
“A father has educated and instructed his child on how to guide himself in life. He hands over a piece of land to him to farm, and says, ‘I have given you the practical directions and all the necessary tools for making this land productive and earning a living. I have given you all the instruction needed for understanding those directions. If you follow them, your land will yield abundant harvests and you will be able to rest in your old age. If you do not, it will bear nothing, and you will die of hunger.’ Having said this, he leaves him to his own devices.”
Is it not true that the land yields crops corresponding to the skill and care invested in its cultivation and that any mistake or negligence on the part of the son has a harmful effect on the harvest? Therefore, the son will be comfortable or poor in his old age, depending on whether he has followed or neglected his father’s directions.
God is even more farsighted, we are told at every moment whether we are doing right or wrong through the spirits that are sent to guide us, although we do not always listen to them. There is also the difference that, if the son wasted his time, he has no opportunity to repair his lapses while God would always give him the means of correcting his mistakes through new lives.