Words of The Lamb magazine

Many believers look forward to their arrival in heaven. After all, it’s supposed to be pretty great. All the beauty and goodness of the earthly world and none of the bad. For myself, however, there is another reason I excitedly await meeting my maker face-to-face. We need to talk; I mean, a really serious talk about the whole earthly existence thing. There are so many things I need to ask Him. I believe my side of the conversation would go like this:

God, you have to ask yourself, was the idea of free will really worth it? Look at what humans have done with this choice. Aren’t you just a little bit disappointed? As a parent, I know my children well enough to know whether I can trust them to make good decisions or not. Does it really feel better if and when they make the choice on their own to do what’s right and choose you? Why have you let humanity degrade itself to the level it has? Why do you let evil win down here? And what are you thinking as you watch it all?

Why do you let children and innocents suffer? What purpose of yours does that serve? Because it would only seem to serve the purpose of evil. How many times do we have to prove ourselves to you? Why do you let good people take the rap for bad people? Didn’t you already do that as Christ? If we’re supposed to fight for your kingdom, why do you make it so dang impossible and let us lose hope? Couldn’t you do a little enabling for those who are truly fighting your battle? We hear the saying, ‘God gives His hardest battles to His greatest warriors,’ but I feel so tired! The only thing I feel strong in is faith. Is that itself the fight? Or the victory?

Why don’t you have the bad people suffer? They certainly deserve it more than decent people who are trying to be good. Really, do the nasty people ever get their comeuppance? Why do you care more about someone who’s been evil all their life and makes a last-minute decision to come to you than for some of us who have been suffering for you all our lives? Why do you allow the devil to torture those who already belong to you? Why isn’t he confined to the abyss of hell instead of being allowed to roam the earth seeking to destroy good souls? Why don’t you just get rid of evil once and for all?

Desperately I ask, where is the peace that you promised us? I know, I know; I have to die to find out. Which brings up another question I’ve pondered: why is suicide a sin? You must know, best of all, the extreme suffering a person goes through to come to contemplate this decision. Yes, I’ve come close to it. After all, who wouldn’t prefer being with you to staying on earth and enduring the unendurable? Finally, what is the point of it all? Couldn’t you give us just a wee peek at your plan? Or maybe, just maybe, when I finally see God I will be so filled with rapture that these worries will cease to exist. Shortly after writing this, I found this quote:

One of the marks of spiritual maturity is the quiet confidence that God is in control—without the need to understand why He does what He does.”
— Anonymous

Guess I’m not there yet, but here’s hoping…