If He Truly Loved Us....

A common theme spoken by non believers is that they simply cannot allow themselves to believe in a God of love, if that same God would allow us to condemn ourselves to eternal torment. Yes, I said, “condemn ourselves,” because really we have free will here and can avail ourselves of all the love and salvation that is being offered to us at any time. He doesn’t really condemn us, we condemn our own selves.

The whole idea reminds me a bit of someone who is drowning and there is a lifeboat and we refuse to get in it because “if you truly loved me, you’d pick me up and put me in it, whether I had the good sense to climb aboard or not.”

“If you truly loved me…..” probably a love test women are more likely to be familiar with than men, because sometimes we do like to test those waters.

So how could God possibly standby and watch us condemn ourselves to eternal torment? I don’t know, but sometimes I wonder how naive one must be to not recognize that this is precisely what many of us are called to do, although on a much smaller scale. Ever watch a loved one waste away with drugs and alcohol, completely powerless to do anything about it?

Ever cared for a diabetic who refuses to manage their diabetes, knowing full well exactly what awaits them? Sores that won’t heal, infection, eventual amputations, blindness, organ failure. Or we could probably avoid all that and just change your diet a bit, exercise, regulate your blood sugar. Forgetaboutit, often people prefer to just do things their own way, the hard way. I don’t know why, but I’m not any different.

It’s a bit amusing in its tragedy, but I can’t tell you how many people I have tried to educate, tried to explain that if you are lucky to live long enough, you will begin to slowly decompose from the inside out, doomed to lose toes, a leg, both legs, until eventually you will die. The answer is nearly always, “Shut up lady, and just hand me my snickers bar.” And yet still I persist, love compels me to, to beg, to plead, to flatter, to cajole, to pray, to use every skill I have to offer to win them over, often to no avail.

It’s sad, life is full of enough things that are genuinely out of our hands, things we simply cannot control. It makes no sense to me that we would then bring additional misery down upon ourselves by being so stubborn and yet we do, all the time. Even I do.

If He really loved me…… He would show up in person and prove His existence so I could be free of doubt.

If He really loved me……..He would know who and what I am and take my choices away so I don’t hurt myself.

If He really loved me…….He would end all the suffering in the world so I don’t have feel bad about it.

If He really loved me………He would not expect me to be accountable for my own choices.

It’s somewhat fascinating, authentic love actually requires all four of those things. There must be some doubt, some freewill, some suffering, some accountability. Without those four things, there is not authentic love, but rather a cheap imitation.  Without doubt there can be no gratitude, but only a sense of entitlement. Without free will, it’s not love but rather Stockholm syndrome. Without suffering there will be no empathy. Without accountability and personal responsibility, love becomes nothing more than narcissism, selfishness. We often tend to want love on our own terms by our own definition, but God’s love really is perfect, far more perfect than we often understand.

He created us, placed us in paradise, laid beauty at our feet, breathed life into us. Even when we betrayed Him, he gently clothed us in skins and set us forth to make our way in the world. When we again betrayed Him, he still did not annihilate us all, but made arrangements to salvage what was left of us. Then He came down here, walked in our shoes, empathized with us, experienced what we experience, faced temptation, grieved over what He saw. Then He was betrayed again and He willingly died for us, suffering on our behalf, so we would not have to pay the price, not have to suffer the consequences of our own actions. He died for us. What greater love is there??

And yet some still insist on trying to say, well, if He really loved us…….

The question is all wrong. The question should be, what kind of a moron would reject such clearly proven love and why?? Don’t be offended, compared to God, we’re all morons. If He really loved us……If one cannot see how much He truly does, the error is on our end. Always.