The Wrath of A Loving God

The Bible is full of the Love of God, from the famous John 3:16 to the equally famous love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. The Bible also details the wrath of God; the torments of Hell prepared for the destruction of sinners and sin, genocide, 40 boys mauled by bears because the mocked a prophet of God (2 Kings 2:23-24), are but a few of the atrocities of God.

How does one reconcile the loving God with this other God who is capable of committing acts of violence that we would normally want to attribute to the devil?

Today I was reading 'The Character of God Controversy' by Steve Wohlberg and Chris Lewis, and I found the following quote; "...God's wrath is not a counterpoint to His love but rather an expression of it. Could it be that God hates sin less because it offends His nature ... than because it distorts our perceptions and separates those He loves from Him?" (pg 12 - actually this is in the foreword, I only just started reading the book. And yes, I do read all the forewords and introductions.) This quote started me thinking along interesting lines and I have the following offering to try to explain what I now think is not a dichotomy at all, but rather that the Wrath of God is an expression of the Love of God. This passage is in the form of an analogy not a Bible study and I would be interested in your thoughts about where the analogy breaks down or could be improved.

Imagine...

A love triangle; the Girl, the Good Guy who loves the Girl, and the Bad Guy who the Girl thinks she loves.

All the Good Guy wants to do is spend time with the Girl, to shower her with gifts, to keep her safe, make her happy and love her. And he can't. Because, the Girl is enamoured, bewitched and  infatuated with the Bad Guy.

The Bad Guy uses and abuses her, beats her, steals her stuff, and generally makes life miserable, except for when he doesn't. Sometimes he is utterly charming, and he makes such hope-filled promises, he knows just how to manipulate her, he has his finger on her hopes, her dreams and her fears. Telling her lies about the Good Guy he destroys her trust and installs fear in its place.

Is it any wonder that the Good Guy hates the Bad Guy? Wants to destroy him? Wants to wipe away the memory of him?

Now lets broaden the picture ...

The Good Guy is the Ruler of the Region and the Bad Guy is his Prime Minister. The Good Guy knows that the Bad Guy has been embezzling from the treasury and fermenting rebellion. The Good Guy knows that for the health of the kingdom he must remove the Bad Guy and punish him, make an example of the Bad Guy and all his supporters.

Now the Good guy has a dilemma, if he acts against the Bad Guy the Girl will be caught up with the supporters and have to be punished, confirming for her all the lies the Bad Guy has told. He needs the Girl to come to him first, of her own free will, out of love, then he can deal to the Bad Guy. So he waits, he deals with the worst crimes, the ones he can not, must not leave to continue and he ignores the others. Waiting for the Bad Guy to make a mistake, to expose himself to the Girl in a way that she can not excuse. And he woos the Girl, attempts to teach her to trust, to recognise his love, to release the fear.

The Girl, she sees the acts of love and favour and she appreciates them, but she also sees the punishments and they confuse her, worry her, scare her. She knows she must decide, eventually, but being either ignorant of the full picture or refusing to believe the evidence she does perceive, she has no idea of the urgency of the situation.

The analogy should be fairly obvious, the Good Guy is God and the Bad Guy is the Devil. The Girl is you, and I, and every other human on this planet.

And now I'm going to stretch the analogy just a little further;

As a friend of the Girl you have a number of options;

1. Tell her the Good Guy, the King, loves her unconditionally, that it doesn't matter what happens when he finally acts against the Bad Guy he will forgive her of anything, so "don't worry you can have them both, stay with the Bad Guy as long as you want. All those other punishments? the wrath of the king? Don't worry it won't effect you." 
2. Tell her that the Bad Guy is evil and the King will destroy him! And he'll destroy her too, just like he destroyed X, Y and Z, unless she straightens up and does the right thing, otherwise you too will encounter the wrath of the King.
3. Point out the love and care of the Good Guy, expose the hurt and lies of the Bad Guy, discuss that justice insist that she will share the fate of the Bad Guy for crimes she has committed under the Bad Guys influence, while mercy promises pardon. Through reason and evidence build trust and love for the Good guy, show her that the Wrath of the King is an expression of the King's love for her and his misery at being separated from her and misrepresented to her.

What would you tell her?

Thoughts On Psalm 84:11

Psalm 84:11

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

Two things struck me this morning as I was reading this passage;

1.    First, the sun is the ultimate source of everything on this planet, well apart from God Himself. Consider;

a.    the sun provides the energy photons that interact with the chlorophyll in plant cells that causes the photosynthesis process to occur. This process makes organic compounds that are used to grow the plants that are then eaten by us and other animals.

b.    And, this process renews the oxygen in the air and removes carbon dioxide.

c.    In addition to this the energy of the sun also runs the water cycle. Without the sun’s heat water would not evaporate and then not rain back down on us. Without an operating water cycle the earth would very quickly become a parched dry and barren place and all water would be gathered together into the oceans, salty and undrinkable.

So the sun is the source of the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink.

However, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Which brings us to the the second point.

2.    A shield is a protection, it could be a traditional shield that protects us from harm from the attacks of others or it could be something as simple as an umbrella being used to shield or protect us from the harmful effects of the sun.

In Psalm 84:11 God is described as both a sun and a shield. As the Creator of the sun He is the ultimate source of life, He maintains every second of our lives and without Him we would immediately perish. However, in our sinful state we cannot exist in His presence, we would be destroyed so he also shields us from Himself, by placing a ‘veil’ around us to protect us from His sin destroying nature.

Then from His grace He provided Jesus, a way back through the veil into His presence that won’t destroy us, that will in fact recreate us into God’s character, or His Glory. Which just goes to prove the rest of the verse, He has not withheld His own Son from us, so He’s not going to withhold any other good thing either.

What Now? and Other Randomnesses.

So I have been thinking about what to do with this blog since I came home. I strikes me that you my friends and family are not going to be very interested in hearing about the mundaneness of everyday adventure free life back here in NZ. Especially since most of you are very familiar with all the things I could think about mentioning. (I think even my American friends would find these doings rather tame.) And my next adventure will not start for a while - not until I go to Korea. So ... What I have been thinking is that; over the last few months I've been musing over a number of philosophical topics such as life and death and all that stuff, but with AFCOE and assignments and everything I have not had time to put them on paper. Or, to be more accurate to arrange vast numbers of electrons into patterns that produce symbols on screens filled with liquid crystals that are interpreted by the human mind as understandable (hopefully) concepts. Therefore I am thinking that in the next few months this blog is going to take a philosphical turn.

Also in the last year I have done very little writing on my novel, for three reasons, 1. I realised I had some big errors, so I put it aside to do do more study 2. when I got to AFCOE I was just too busy, and 3. I started to wonder if I really should be writing the truest, biggest, series of events in the universe, the foundation of our world and history into a common place story, if I was doing God a disservice ... still have not resolved that issue. However I have been reading about what Mrs White had to say about the imagination and the way it was designed to be used. It was designed for us to imagine true events at which we were not/could not be present. e.g the life of Christ and any other event in the Bible. In fact she tells us that we should be using our imaginations to visualise these events. I know that when I was writing about the beginning of the War in Heaven even though I was putting it into a science fiction/fantasy context it made the origins of the great controversy between God and Satan much more real to me and much more understandable. So I have decided this year I am going back to writing again, I'm going to focus to start with on the life of Christ as a human here on earth and I'm going to write it straight. As in, not in the sci-fi/fantasy genre but like it actually happened. I will keep studying the other and if I decide to go back to my original plan it would not take much to add the elements necessary - and to change the names. (I'd started writing with peoples real names anyway because I kept confusing myself about who was who ...) As a result you can expect to see more snippets appearing on this blog. Feel free to edit my abnormally long mutant sentence - am well aware I have significant problems with the placement of the full stop vs the comma... :-)

Have also been wondering what to do with the rest of my life, have enjoyed my adventures of the last two years and am looking forward to the Korea adventure, but I am beginning to be looking forward to the end of adventures and the unpacking of boxes and setting up house again. I am starting to look around for a challenge that I can get my teeth into for a few years. And Yes, I do know, I will want to have adventures again at some future date. Any and all ideas will be thoughtfully considered, got a year or so to make up my mind - not going to miss out on the Korea adventure. (Unless God points me in a different direction, when it comes to God all plans are flexible.)

In the mean time I'm settled here in New Zealand for a few months, the end of January will determine exactly how long that will be for. I think most people know by now, but just in case some one missed out on the news, I submitted a proposal to a Educational Publishing company about six months ago to write and publish chemistry resource books for teachers. They told me that a. I was very passionate about that idea, and b. they liked the idea but needed to submit it to a committee to determine if it would be of use to teachers and students and if it was financially viable. Since then they have been sitting on the idea and not made a decision. I know what I have is useful to both teachers and students because it has grown out of resources I used for 12 years in my teaching. On January 27 I have a meeting with a representative of the company. Please pray that Gods Will will be done. I don't want to spend a bunch of time on publishing these books unless it will help in furthering His plan. If the publishing does go ahead then I will be leaving for Korea mid-August. If the publishing does not go ahead then I'll be leaving mid-April.

I will be In Oz for a few weeks June/July-ish to go to Winter School at Avondale and complete my Masters, have one paper and a thesis to do. (If I go to Korea early I will be able to come back for the Winter School, have already confirmed that with the Korea people.) Won't be tripping around visiting people this time though - sorry. You'll have to come visit me in Cooranbong instead.

What else do I have planned for the next few months?
1. Am going to visit a number of schools in the next two weeks and get my name on some lists to do relief (substitute - for the Americans) teaching. So I may be posting a few student stories on this blog. (Did I ever tell you about the kid who wanted to know if an egg was a fruit or a vegetable?)

2. Today I was running errands for Mum and also familiarising myself with the new town they live in, they moved while I was away. While doing that I discovered the Arts centre, so this week I am going to go in and sign up for an art group. Then I will hopefully liberate either my paints or my pastels and start creating pictures again. Am sincerely hoping they are packed in a box here at Mum's and not in a box in PN. Otherwise that plan will have to wait until I get down to PN - maybe I should attempt the liberation before I sign up for the group ... the thing is I have had some ideas for a series on flaxes floating around in my head for a while now and I really want to get them on paper/canvass. And I found a gallery that my kind of art would actually fit into, as opposed to standing out as quite bizarre which was what happened with the art I had in the gallery in PN. Am going to make an appointment to meet the manager next week.

3. I am cracking open the textbooks again and completing the personal trainer certificate I began while I was at BHHEC - another of those things that got put on hold when I went to AFCOE. Will be practising on myself to begin with - and then anyone else I can talk into being a guinea pig ... any volunteers?

4. While at AFCOE I learned so much, was fabulous! And my own spiritual growth benefited immensely from the experience - hence my re-baptism. However I need to be able to put all of these things I have learned into words so that I can share them coherently with others. Therefore, I have decided to write myself a series of essays entitled "Why I believe ... [insert topic of choice]." Currently I have about 4 topics lined up at the top of the list, after that I will be picking things at random so if anyone has a topic they would like to know a bit more about send me an email and I'll put it on the list beneath the current top 4 but ahead of the random others.

5. My New Years Resolution is to memorise the books of the Bible beginning with H. Fairly random I know. Began with a friend who was asking for people to memorise the book of Hebrews with her this year, I said sure I'll do that, then was calculating that at one verse a day there was still a bunch of the year left after Hebrews was finished. So added in the other two books that begin with H; Habakkuk and Haggai. Anyone interested in joining me? If so send me an email and I'll send you the plan, you'll only be 5 days behind me! (Most days are only one verse, a few days the verses are really short so have combined two together.)

6. Final thing, I am considering is picking up my violin and seeing if I can get a decent noise out of it. Is embarrassing to admit that I dragged it around America with me for a year and only played it once. Right now I am not sure I could even play a scale accurately but with faithful practise the skills will come back. (Not that they were all that great to begin with, but I could at least play recognisable hymns. Failing that I might see if I can find another singing teacher. Sandy you don't want to move to Auckland do you?

Those are all my current plans for filling in my time back in NZ, and I suspect they are more than enough!

Wishing all my lovely friends a wonderful and busy year - because un-busy ones are boring! (Well they are boring after about 3 weeks of unbusyness.)