I have always had a difficult time understanding God. He is simultaneously grace and judgement, love and wrath, peace and anger. He is complex and too big for us to ever fully grasp, but He invites us to know Him.
Over the years as I have read and explored, I have become very troubled by the existence of Hell. Questions and doubts flooded my mind and sadness filled my heart. How could a "good" God ever cast His people into eternal condemnation? What about those who never heard Jesus' name? How can I confidently say that I love and follow a God who is so judgmental?
I explored different theories like pluralism and universalism. I would get so excited researching and reading about these because I saw hope. I saw a way for everyone to be saved. I saw love in these theories. But I also saw discrepancies with what I knew to be biblically true:
"Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life." -- John 4:16
And so I continued to struggle with doubts about God and His character. I tried believing in only what I wanted to believe. I tried rationalizing and justifying, I tried ignoring and I tried praying. I prayed that I would never recklessly put truth to a theory just because I liked the idea. I prayed for discernment and guidance in my quest for answers.
I happened to bring it up with one of my friends and what she said changed my world.
She said that God is wrath and judgement and anger, yes, but in a different way than we know. His wrath and judgement and anger are pure, gracious and out of love. He loves us so much, He is constantly pursuing us, chasing wildly after us, answering our prayers, blessing us beyond what we need, absolutely lavishing us. And while He is loving us so deeply and faithfully, He is also giving us a choice. He loves us so much that He lets us resist, dismiss and reject Him.
Eternal condemnation, she said, is His final act of love. He gives us what we want. And if, for our whole lives, we deny Him, He lets us deny Him eternally. He loves us enough to let us choose other paths. He lets us go, if that is what we choose.
This changed my perspective. To me, this made sense. This fit His character. I am not saying that this is absolutely correct, I am not confirming the existence of Hell, I am not condemning the people in the world who reject Jesus. What I am doing is offering words that hopefully encourage and clarify. We must understand that we cannot and will not have all the answers in this life, but we can try to make sense of the things we do know. And what we know is that God is love and God is good.
