I have said before, I love and get angry at God.
If one of my kids was hurting one of my other kids, they’d PAY.
Why is it not so with us?
___________________________________________________
I think that’s part of an argument I had with God (why haven’t I won any of those yet?)
That particular argument sputtered to a confused halt on my part when God reminded me that he allowed his only begotten son to be tortured and killed by ‘us’ in order to save us. He doesn’t plan to make ME pay for it even though it is hard to conceive of a crime worse than torturing Love to death on a cross.
I was then reminded that He does not view this earth in its fallen state to be our true home and that he looks forward to the day when He will dry every tear and there will be no more pain. EVIL WILL BE JUDGED and woe to those who hurt the little of His...etc.
Verses about how those who suffer will be blessed in Heaven and the ones that indicate we probably couldn’t understand the answer to this question if he spoke it (JOB basically can’t answer a series of questions from God and concedes that he probably wouldn’t even understand the words the Almighty would use if he were to tell Job the reason why he suffered so).
But personally, one of the more satisfying portions of that argument centered around God’s wrath. One of the prophets is given a glimpse of heaven and says God sits enthroned within a circle of crackling fire (His wrath)and while I used to dislike that image, it’s the one I think of when I hear of children being abused, people being tortured...God is enraged by the abuse far more than I am.
Oh well, I don’t know if my argument with Him overlapped with your post sufficiently but I thought I would post some of it in case it did.
“...it is hard to conceive of a crime worse than torturing Love to death on a cross.”
Thank you for this post. No one can convince me that God does not realize ABOVE and BEYOND our experience with suffering.
And yet, He forgives us.