This question came up this week.  It is a fairly common thing to hear from those we know and care about to ask about God and a reason why many don’t care to get to know God.  Please do let me know if this answer makes sense as it is a HUGE question and can feel intimidating to answer.

The verse that we were talking about at the time.

Psalm 105:7 “He is the LORD our God. His justice is seen throughout the land.”    I will come back to this for the second half.

I would tend to say this is  a two part answer because there is a scripture based answers that the believer can understand and then there is an applying of this and changing the wording so that someone who does not have the Holy Spirit and God can relate to the Truth in a way that makes sense to them.

First, let’s consider the perspective/lens that most unbelievers are seeing the world through.    Although they may label it in many different ways, those have rejected God as Lord have really chosen themselves as god of their universe.   They may believe in something, but that something really is just an outward excuse for them to live according to their own values, sense of right and wrong and justice.   In their minds, they are in control of their lives and what they believe therefore governs them.   Scripture tells us plainly that they cannot understand.   Without the help of the Holy Spirit, this is the truth as only He can enable them to overcome this human limitation and truly understand the things of God.

1 Corinthians 2:12-15 English Standard Version (ESV)  “12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.[a]14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.”

Most people relate very well to things that pertain to themselves, as most are self-centered to some degree.   So when speaking with an unbeliever, I usually try to find something that is likely part of their personal experience (as they can fully relate to that) and tie this into the question they are asking.   This is my central approach in “witnessing” about the Kingdom.

Here is what this might sound like when I am sharing with someone.

“Do you remember a time in your life when things were more simple, that you had more joy and peace?  Do you remember a time when you felt truly content?”  Many will answer yes and that was something they recalled having as a young child.  “Do you still have that same joy and peace today?”  Answers vary…

Next I share about my experience and relate it to theirs.   “I remember, vaguely albeit, feeling these things a long time ago.   I don’t know about you, but I have found, with each passing year, each movie, each experience, there was something that I could feel and experience as a young innocent child that I just didn’t feel anymore.   I look at my 2 year old and 4 year old and it takes so little to make them happy.   There is something so powerful in that innocence.   Do you ever wonder why or if it is possible to somehow regain that thing that we had and lost along the way?”  At this point I usually share my testimony of being healed of Crohn’s disease because there is power in our testimony and that was a supernatural humanly impossible feat.    It is not essential but tangible and real.    “Just bear with me for a minute here… I am going to try to explain how I understand it and see if you relate as well as honestly, the question you have asked is an excellent one, and I think one that every person who has a heart of compassion needs an answer to.    It is also a big question, and one worth seeking out.”

Enter in my playdough analogy.   “Picture that I am handing you a ball of white playdough, pure white playdough and that I have a ball myself.    Now make a little bowl in your playdough.  And let’s add a few drops of green and red food colouring” (just as an fyi I have done this with playdough and food colouring and those two colours together make this putrid black, brown yucky colour) “and then carefully seal up our playdough, sealing the dye inside.   The Bible says that everyone is created to be very good (the white playdough) but that at birth, each baby receives a generational curse for the sins of their forefathers going back 3 to 4 generations. (The food colouring).  Now start mushing that ball of playdough together and the dye hiding in the middle quickly starts to come out.   So even they look super innocent, right at conception, this sin thing is passed on.  Most people know about the story of Adam and eve eating the forbidden fruit.   This is the legacy of that first sinful act.    Now the womb is not a neutral environment at all.  Whatever that mom eats and drinks affects the baby, whatever traumas etc that mom experiences or spiritual things she encounters, that baby is right there going through them in some measure too.  A lot of these mean another drop of food colouring, further exposure to sin and hurt and pains.  So at birth, the ball is noticeably less white.   ”

“As we go through our growing up years… we witness some inappropriate attitudes on the tv and among our friends, we experience judgements, cast judgements, learn to lie, talk back to our parents etc… more drops…  In highschool, opportunities abound to choose our own paths instead of God’s..  Looking back I can things pretty clearly.   I was convinced that I was a good person, that I had strong values and that I could hold my own.   If you are anything  like I was, by the end of university, my playdough was looking pretty goopy and messy… ”

“Just imagine your playdough infused with 100-500 more drops of food colouring and you will get the picture pretty clearly.   What do you see?   YUP, a gooey ucky mess.   That is what we can see.   Here is the AWESOME amazing news.    God looks at me and you and see white playdough and foodcolouring.    He sees the very good person He created and the sin that has latched on to His creation.   He never loses sight of who we really are and always wants us to be free to enjoy this.   He hates beyond human comprehension the sin that is holding us captive and is the only being in all of Creation that is capable of removing not only the sin but the stain of sin and make us white as snow again.    This  has been my experience.   13 years ago I met God by reading His Word, not through church, not through a person, but by reading the book He wrote for Me.   And every since, I have watched in awe as He is healing my body, healing my broken heart, restoring my hope that I can live in peace, infusing my life with purpose, meaning and joy and helping me to get over all the things that I tried and tried and tried to move past on my own for years to no avail.   This is one of the reasons I am passionate about God and long for everyone I love to experience the same freedom, restoration, happiness and health that have come into my life by getting to know God for who He really is. ”

“But here is the thing, scripture says that God is the source of all goodness, of all blessings, of all the things that the human hearts desperately wants and needs.   It also says that the land that we live in is either blessed or cursed based on our relationship with Him.   The state of the world around us is nothing more than a mirror reflecting the status of the relationship between God and  the people who occupy it.  There is simply no way to walk with His blessing on our homes, lives, children, land and country if we have rejected Him as He is the source of all goodness.      Bad things happening is actually really just the absence.      So at the end of the day, we are basically saying, I want the benefits, but I don’t want to commit to the relationship.   ”

God is God and He is perfectly just.    So regardless of how good WE feel about ourselves and our ability to live in a moral and just way, He is comparing our lives, to His Word and His definition of what GOOD and righteous living means.   Friend, honestly, I have read this book cover to cover many times now…  the bottom line is while we might feel pretty good about who we are when we compare ourselves to each other, it will only take a few passages in this book to make us realize that we are falling radically short to the requirements of goodness that are spelled out in detail in here.  ”

God is incorruptible and has perfect integrity, He is absolutely honest and faithful to do all that He says.    He never bends the rules, accepts a bribe or overturns the law, He cannot be deceived nor swayed in any way.   He upholds it perfectly 100% of the time.     This is a very good thing as we all know that a corrupt judge means no protection for anyone.   He is enforcing His Law, His commandments and as Creator, the supernatural and natural laws on which He framed all of Creation.  I think we can all understand that if we break a law in ignorance, especially willfull ignorance, that a righteous judge will still enforce the law and penalty accordingly.”

“I believe this is why we have the Bible.   This is why I LOVE this book.  God has taken the time to spell out in detail everything.. Not only that but He has promised to literally transform us and empower us and equip us and enable us to live according to His ways simply by prioritizing, reading and meditating on His Word and letting Him in.     Not only does it teach me, and correct me, and empower me to keep His Word, but it also gives me wisdom, hope, healing, restores to me my identity, my purpose, my joy, and my very life.   Creation, just like every single one of us is longing to be free from the rule of sin and Satan and to be what God created it to be.”

Matthew 6:32-34 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)  “32 For the Gentiles (heathen) wish for and crave and diligently seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows well that you need them all.  33 But seek ([a]aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness ([b]His way of doing and being right), and then all these things [c]taken together will be given you besides.  34 So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble.”

Romans 8:18-25 The Passion Translation (TPT)”18 I am convinced that any suffering we endure is less than nothing compared to the magnitude of glory[a] that is about to be unveiled within us.[b] 19 The entire universe is standing on tiptoe,[c] yearning to see the unveiling of God’s glorious[d] sons and daughters! 20 For against its will the universe itself has had to endure the empty futility[e] resulting from the consequences of human sin. But now, with eager expectation, 21 all creation longs for freedom from its slavery to decay and to experience with us the wonderful freedom coming to God’s children. 22 To this day we are aware of the universal agony and groaning of creation, as if it were in the contractions of labor for childbirth. 23 And it’s not just creation. We who have already experienced the firstfruits of the Spirit[f] also inwardly groan as we passionately long to experience our full status as God’s sons and daughters—including our physical bodies being transformed. 24 For this is the hope of our salvation.But hope means that we must trust and wait for what is still unseen. For why would we need to hope for something we already have? 25 So because our hope is set on what is yet to be seen, we patiently keep on waiting for its fulfillment.”

The cumulative effect of living in a sin filled world had left a pretty deep impact.  I was very sick physically, my values and self-worth had plummetted and I had lost so much of my joy and peace.     I made choices that I regretted, and lived a 2 faced life, hiding the reality of me behind a facade of a smiling face and a can do attitude.   But my health gave the real story away.  I had lost myself and didn’t even really know who I was because I was so busy trying to be someone else.   My medical prognosis was poor which only aggravated my self-worth and the worth that the world placed on me.   So I was stuck with no way out.

The thing is scripture says that the blessings of life and life abundantly are a byproduct of a thriving relationship with God.   Scripture says that are health and well being are so dependent on this relationship and that even our physical bodies and minds need time with God and His Word in the same way that we need food and water and air.   Ya ya, but what has that got to do with the state of the world.    The Bible also says that blessings and curses follow people in the measure that they listen to and obey and live in relationship with God.   The world literally mirrors the spiritual health of the people who live here.   When people are walking with God, this opens the doors for blessings to be poured out on the land.  In a way, people are like the tap.  When we are turned on through a relationship with God, the land is showered with blessings.  When we are turned off, the land suffers from drought and blights and natural disasters.   When we are turned on, we sow kindness and love and goodness, and these things come back to us and the land shaken down, pressed down and overflowing.   When we speak and act otherwise, we get the opposite.  At the end of the day, the state of the world around us is simply a reflection of the spiritual health of the people who inhabit it.

The most simple way I can put it.

God is the source of all goodness and blessing.  Wherever God is welcomed and received goodness and blessings abound.

Evil and “badness” is simply the absence of God and His goodness and blessings.   Wherever God is rejected, destruction, evil and brokenness are the substance of the void that is left in His absence.  To exclude God is to exclude His benefits.

PART 2 The answer for believers:

So considering our original verse…  “God’s judgments are in all the earth”

This scripture says plainly that God’s justice is presently seen all through the land.   Regardless of whether or not that we know/that this is true, it is happening.  Scripture tells us over and over again the land itself was affected by the sin of the people.  Just picture the 10 plagues that hit Egypt.    Or think of the story we talked about when Elijah was directed by God to curse the land with drought.  We could work back all through the stories of the Bible  and see this truth playing out in so many ways.    We also see His blessings overtake the land of those who walk after the Lord (see Exodus 8).  We see this in the story of Abraham and Lot, and even though Abraham got the seemingly “poorer” part of the deal when they chose which portion of the land they would get, his family and flocks positively thrived and muliplied there abundantly provided for under the blessing of God.  Lot on the other hand was drawn into the culture and practice of Sodom and Gomorrah in some measure and he reaped the loss of his wife and the assault of his daughters (see Genesis 19).  The whole nation of Judah was taken captive as a direct result of their disobedience and lived as slaves as a result of their following their own ways instead of reverencing God as Lord (Jeremiah 20:4)

Numbers 14:21-23 King James Version (KJV) “21 But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.  22 Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;  23 Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:”

Here is the big problem.   People in their minds are generally operating on a false definition of sin.   Most think to sin is to do something obviously evil.   Generally, there is enough common knowledge that the 10 commandments are sin but even there, they don’t really believe it.   Most believe that it is good to tell a white lie in order not to hurt someone’s feelings.   Many would never consider gossip to be a sin, where God calls gossip murder with the tongue.

Scripture defines sin differently.  Sin is simply not listening to and obeying God.   If we are not listening to God, we can pretty much guarantee that we are not obeying Him, and if we are not obeying Him and doing as He says, we are living sin filled lives.

It is a too common expression through the Old Testament “because you did not hearken ” to the Lord, such and such a consequence will follow.

This was true in the very beginning of sin…   Here is the account from Genesis and confirmation that the ground was cursed from then on because of their sin.

Genesis 3:17-19 King James Version (KJV)  “17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;  18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;  19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

I think it is good to never forget that sin entered the world not because Adam and Eve murdered, or some other heinous act…  all they did was eat a piece of fruit that God said not to.    I have 4 children…  eating forbidden food is not something that WE typically think of as being a major sin and yet, it was THE sin that released all sin into the world.  God saw all the strings attached to that fruit.  God saw the cost that would come from Adam and Eve eating from the tree of forbidden knowledge.    When we go against God’s commands and do the things He says are bad for us, we too are reaching for knowledge and experiences with things that God tells us are unfruitful.   Our perception is simply not adequate to see what He sees and to understand what our simple acts of disobedience actually unleash on the world and those around us.

Here in Deuteronomy is a list of all the curses that not listening to and obeying the voice of God results in.  Do note that this is not for doing bad things but for not obeying God.   (KJV this is translated not hearkened).    Do take the time to read the blessings too for those who do hearken and obey.  They are too wonderful for words.

Deuteronomy 28:15-68 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)  15 But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command you this day, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you:  16 Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the field.   17 Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading trough.18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, of your land, of the increase of your cattle and the young of your sheep.  19 Cursed shall you be when you come in and cursed shall you be when you go out.  20 The Lord shall send you curses, confusion, and rebuke in every enterprise to which you set your hand, until you are destroyed, perishing quickly because of the evil of your doings by which you have forsaken me [Moses and God as one].  21 The Lord will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land into which you go to possess.  22 The Lord will smite you with consumption, with fever and inflammation, fiery heat, sword and drought, blasting and mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish.  23 The heavens over your head shall be brass and the earth under you shall be iron.  24 The Lord shall make the rain of your land powdered soil and dust; from the heavens it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed.  25 The Lord shall cause you to be struck down before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them, and you shall be tossed to and fro and be a terror among all the kingdoms of the earth. [Fulfilled in II Chron. 29:8.]  26 And your dead body shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away.  7 The Lord will smite you with the boils of Egypt and the tumors, the scurvy and the itch, from which you cannot be healed.  28 The Lord will smite you with madness and blindness and dismay of [mind and] heart.  29 And you shall grope at noonday as the blind grope in darkness. And you shall not prosper in your ways; and you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to save you.  30 You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but not live in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but not gather its grapes.  31 Your ox shall be slain before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away before your face and not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to help you.   32 Your sons and daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all the day; and there shall be no power in your hands to prevent it. [Fulfilled in II Chron. 29:9.]  33 A nation which you have not known shall eat up the fruit of your land and of all your labors, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually, [Fulfilled in Judg. 6:1-6; 13:1.]   34 So that you shall be driven mad by the sights which your eyes shall see.   35 The Lord will smite you on the knees and on the legs with a sore boil that cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.   36 The Lord shall bring you and your king whom you have set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall [be forced to] serve other gods, of wood and stone. [Fulfilled in II Kings 17:4, 6; 24:12, 14; 25:7, 11; Dan. 6:11, 12.]  37 And you shall become an amazement, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples to which the Lord will lead you.   38 You shall carry much seed out into the field and shall gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. [Fulfilled in Hag. 1:6.]   39 You shall plant vineyards and dress them but shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them.   40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory but you shall not anoint yourselves with the oil, for your olive trees shall drop their fruit.   41 You shall beget sons and daughters but shall not enjoy them, for they shall go into captivity. [Fulfilled in Lam. 1:5.]   42 All your trees and the fruit of your ground shall the locust possess. [Fulfilled in Joel 1:4.]    43 The transient (stranger) among you shall mount up higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower.  44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.  45 All these curses shall come upon you and shall pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.  46 They shall be upon you for a sign [of warning to other nations] and for a wonder, and upon your descendants forever.”

Deuteronomy 29:26-28 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
“26 They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they have not known and whom He had not [a]allotted to them. 27 Therefore, the anger of the Lord burned against that land, to bring upon it every curse which is written in this book; 28 and the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and in fury and in great wrath, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’”

Isaiah 24:5-6 New International Version (NIV)  “5 The earth is defiled by its people;
they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt.  Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.”

Not knowing and believing in God and serving other gods is ample cause to bring on all the curses listed.  This week we read a verse about being ALWAYS mindful of His covenant…   When we begin to see what our lives and choices can trigger we understand why this is truly essential counsel

There is simply no way to walk in obedience to God without accepting His Lordship and tuning our ears and hearts to truly hear and obey Him.    This is why relationship with Him and time in His Word are non-negociables for walking in His blessings.

Isaiah 5:19-21 King James Version (KJV)  “19 That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!  20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!  21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!”

Romans 1:20-32 New American Standard Bible (NASB)  “20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not [a]honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and [b]crawling creatures.  24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for [c]a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed [d]forever. Amen.  26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is [e]unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing [f]indecent acts and receiving in [g]their own persons the due penalty of their error.28 And just as they did not see fit [h]to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, [i]haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

 

I believe in speaking with unbelievers that it is also helpful to sandwich the hard bits between messages of hope and an invitation to restoration.

Beginning the conversation with something like:   “Wow, that is a great question.   I have wrestled with it myself.   I think about it often.    I think it is an essential question and one that shows that most people inwardly groan and hurt to see all the evil in the world.     I agree with you.   I know it might surprise you but the Bible actually gives really good as to why it is this way and how to make it right again….

 

At the end, I try to always bring it back to God’s goodness and faithfulness.

Psalm 69:33 New Living Translation (NLT) “33 For the Lord hears the cries of the needy;
he does not despise his imprisoned people.”

2 Peter 3:9 NLT “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.”

Ezekiel 22:29-31 English Standard Version (ESV) “29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the sojourner without justice. 30 And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. 31 Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have returned their way upon their heads, declares the Lord God.”

God literraly searches the whole earth to find someone willing to pray and to send as a minister of reconciliation in His desire to see each and everyone redeemed and restored.  But leaves the ultimate choice to each one to accept his invitation or decline it.

An example of my closing remarks:  “But here is the thing….  God loved Adam and Eve so much, that even after they sinned, God set in motion a way for them to be reconciled.   He promised them that one would come out of their generational line who could make things right again.   Who would pay the penalty for their sins and the sins of all mankind.     His perfect Justice requires that someone pays the penalty in full.   And this is why Jesus is absolutely essential to everyone’s being restored.  The penalty for all sin (including eating forbidden fruit) is death.    Jesus came and led a completely sinless life and then died the most horrendous kind of death to stand in for me, to stand in for you and to pay the full  penalty of what our sins have ushered over our lives.    God loves us so much that He was willing to send Jesus to takes the scourging we deserved (to break the yoke of sickness and death over our physical bodies), to take the crown of thorns (the mental anguish) that knowing good and evil pulled into this world,  and died a horrible death on the cross so that the legal requirement that anyone who sins will surely die was satisfied.     Truly God is perfectly just but He is also perfectly good.    He loves you.   He sees you for who you really are.   He is the one who put that goodness in you, that goodness that sees all that is wrong in the world and cries out screams “NO THIS IS NOT HOW IT WAS MEANT TO BE” and He longs to make it right more than you or I can possibly imagine.    He misses you.  He wants to talk with you, to heal all the broken places in your heart and body and mind.   He absolultely adores you.  He made you for so so so much more and there is a part of you that knows this.   I truly believe there is a hole in every human heart that only He can fill.   Just know that you can never be too far gone for Him…    I didn’t believe any of this until I was 30 years old.   I hit a crisis that forced me to seek out the thing I needed to fill that hole.   I know that you have to find your own answers and you might be thinking this is not my answer.   But go, oh do go and find the thing that fills this hole in your heart… and if you cannot find it anywhere else know that He is waiting for you with infinite love and patience to come home to Him.   I can tell you that my own playdough has been getting whiter and whiter and that hole in my heart has been filled.

A few years ago,  my mom died of cancer.   It was a hard time for all of us.    She was sick for 2 years and only once did God prompt me to tell her about Him and His Kingdom.

We had had a long winter with my husband fighting the flu on and off again for most of the winter.   Not wanting to expose my mom, we were unable to visit her much during her last months.   When we finally did make it down, my dad said to me:  “I am so glad you came, now the picture is complete, we are all together.  Without you here, there is a hole”… My dad’s words echoing in my heart, I realized that my Mom was God’s child, His creation, before she was anybody else’s. That He was going to miss her for all of eternity if she didn’t come home. That it didn’t matter what had gone on from the moment she entered this word (out of his immediate and complete protective care) to the moment she would go home, that as a loving Father, He would always miss her and there would always be a hole, a sense of incompleteness if she wasn’t there. No, it wasn’t a condemning, lecturing, angry Father waiting for her but a loving Father, an infinitely patient Father, a Father who was longing to hug, to console and comfort, to shelter and to protect and heal from all pain and suffering she had experienced during her time here on earth…   I was undone by His love.   It felt like I was hearing  the gospel myself for the first time.

This picture is etched in my brain and I know this same invitation is one He is extending to every person I meet and know.

If the person who asked this question is a parent, this testomony is a wonderful way for them to relate to the Father’s love.   They know that ultimately they do not control their kids and they can relate to the pain they feel as parents when they see their children making choices that usher in pain and even devastation.   Many can also relate to being the parent who longs to have their child home and safe and to be there to help bind up all the brokenness that they experienced out “there”.

I share these things knowing that we are all unique and the answers we give will come coloured by our lives and personalities, which is just such a wonderful and powerful thing.  God bless you all as you find your answers to these tough questions and God reveals His heart to you in a way that helps you express His to others.

During the meetings, I did mention where Satan fits into all of this.  I will do that part in a separate post.  Blessings.