The Hard Line

I try to have a unique view of the world. I don’t like the black and white view of the world, with cut and dried good and evil being the norm. It oversimplifies morality and has a hard line that is too easily straddled or crossed over. Innocence or guilt, good or evil, right or wrong. Hardcore law with no flexibility built into it. Under grace. Under law. Your choice on where to live your life.

What I see in life is a little bit of good in the evil we do, as well as a little bit of evil in the good we do. Every action is a shade of grey, darkness and lightness determined by the intention of the human heart. Unfortunately, the most pure heart in the lives of men is still tarnished by the lightest shade of grey, so much so that there are no men in this world with a pure heart.

I am not a god. If offered, I would hope that I would turn down the position. I know myself too well, and I know that I would somehow screw something up in ways too grand to be imagined. Bruce Almighy, the Jim Carey movie with Morgan Freeman playing God, shows what happens when infinite cosmic power is used for selfish gain, and without infinite wisdom and self-control, let alone the infinite love, required to wield the power effectively in the service of others.

I am a human being, so much smaller than God or any other deity that has at one time been worshipped and adored. I am thankful that I am not Buddha, or that I am not Rama, Shiva, or any other incarnation of some other deity. I do not hold out my hand and speak the magic words, Let there be light, and then watch light magically appear in my hand. I do not go out into the back yard and carve a humanoid shape into the soil and then attempt to breathe life into it. I am good at creating monsters, but they are only figments of my own imagination. There are worse creatures in the world than H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu. My monsters would freak out Cthulu.

I do not have a God’s eye view on the world. Being so close to the human race, I have this tendency to see this crazy shading of blacks and whites and greys mixing together, blending into a dark menagerie of hopelessness. And all that is evil in the world takes the paint brush and does all that it can to smear that which is good with the greyness of its own existence. There is no room for goodness, decency, morality, or law.

The greatest tragedy in all of this is seeing how the word “love” has been corrupted. Love is no longer strong. Love is no longer faithful. Love is no longer patient. Love is no longer kind. Love is no longer truthful. Love no longer casts out fear, but becomes something to fear. Love is not something to die for, but one must kill in the name of love. Love must be eradicated from this world craving the darkness at the expense of the light.

I have listened to the words of conservatives, neoconservatives, right-wingers, left-wingers, and liberals. I have never heard a conservative demand the death of a human being, except for Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and a few other terrorists. From the liberal end of the spectrum I have heard demands for people to be killed, like former Pres. Bush, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, and the list extends right on down to unborn babies, those vile creatures accidentally conceived during one hot, sweaty moment of passion when there was no love to be found.

The only people I know in politics who have dared use “love” to unite voters were the supporters of the Ron Paul rEVOLution. Evil people from the Left and the Right took out their paintbrushes and painted these people as moonbats or political freaks who believed every conspiracy theory ever designed. The Left is angry at the Right, the Right is angry at the Left, and everyone is angry at Ron Paul.

So much anger, so much hatred, so much fear to spread, so many voices calling for violence to end it all, and so little time to make it happen. By the grace of God the blood people are calling for has not yet been spilled. One day God will step aside and many prayers will be answered as the body count uncontrollably spirals into the depths of the earth. The people calling for blood will one day mingle their blood with the blood of their enemies.

I see shades of grey. God sees things in black and white. This is God’s universe. God makes the rules. God has the right to be a hardliner. His way or no way. His way is love. Evil hates Jesus Christ, and as such it hates God the Father. Sin separates us, God’s children who are in love with evil, from the only deity in this universe that has ever claimed to be our Father.

The only reason why a person burns in the lake of fire at the end of time is because he or she rejected Jesus Christ as the only way to get to the Father. God will not coerce a person into believing in Him. God will not force a person to go to Heaven. God will not twist a person’s arm or break a leg or do anything to a person that will violate the individual’s free choice that He gave to him or to her. God does not bodyslam nonbelievers and then demand repentance. God will not bend to the will of a human being if it means believing in Him. God has already done what is required to save a person. The person has to be willing to be saved on God’s terms, or else that person is lost.

The purpose of the lake of fire is to destroy sin. Sin is the breaking of the law. In our society, we have laws. When you are caught breaking a law, there is a penalty that must be paid. God has His laws, and LOVE is the reason the law exists. To paraphrase Jesus Christ, “Love God… Love others… upon these hang the law and the testimony.” People who reject Jesus Christ reject God. They do not love the Father, so hellfire will burn them until they cease to exist.

One of the things about Jonah that bothers me was his desire to see the people of Nineveh destroyed by fire. The Assyrians were a people ruled by brutally oppressive kings who openly bragged about their war crimes and atrocities. One can read about Ashurbanipal and Sennacharib and find similar attributes in Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot. Jonah knew the reputation of the Assyrians, and he wanted to see God’s judgment poured out on Nineveh. It made him angry when the city repented and he didn’t get to see the fireworks display. On the Left and the Right I see people who are interested in the fireworks of human justice. It is not God’s justice that they seek, but it is their self-righteous judgment against their bogeymen that keeps hatred burning in our world.

I look at the hard line between right and wrong. I see the shades of grey where God’s mercy is painted. God’s paintbrush applies the blood of Jesus Christ to those who know they have sinned and seek to claim their inheritance through Him. They once again claim God as their Father. The snow falling in our world are sinners bowing before Him and seeking an escape from the uncontrolled flames of human passion that knows no mercy. God has a merciful love for us if only we would accept it. The line between black and white, good and evil, right and wrong, is blurred by the mercy I find in God’s heart for us, the love He asks us to accept and to embrace and to share with those who reject Him.

It is called “God’s strange act.” The day comes when fire falls from heaven and hellfire ignites, destroying sin. As sin is consumed, so are the people who loved sin more than they loved God. Their hatred, their self-righteous anger, their brutality are consumed by the flames, and their bodies turn to ash, then they cease to exist. God loves them, and in one final act, He answers their prayers: Dear God, please don’t exist. As each sinner finds eternal rest in the blackness of sleep, God ceases to exist, and so do they. God loves them enough to kiss them good night.

God is a hardliner. All He wants is for us to be on His side of the line, where His banner over us is LOVE. What’s wrong with that?