Stubborn

I am so stubborn. I know it and I know my God does as well. I don’t know how He keeps blessing me after all the stupid things I do, but He DOES. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

We can’t fathom His love for us. We can imagine to try, like if we have children, we think we understand. As with everything, we fall very, very short. There is no perfect love on earth through us, His children. He IS perfect love and although we strive for it here, we never fully achieve it because evil does everything it can to ruin perfect love. That is the purview of evil. Think about it…

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Putting brother against brother? Not love. Evil.

Lying and stealing and cheating? Not love. Evil.

Convincing people they can be as God? Not love. Original lie. Evil.

Think about all of it. Everything we do to each other WE ARE NOT DOING OUT OF LOVE. Every selfish act we do — and the narcissism factor is not only active but prolific — is an act CONTRARY to love, which, in turn, is contrary to the environment our Father wants for us. This was NOT part of what we were supposed to enjoy.

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When we lie, that’s narcissism at it’s finest. That’s not true love because true love does not put oneself first and foremost. True love is having compassion and limited empathy. It is not enabling someone to destroy themselves by giving them everything they want. There’s an old episode of Twilight Zone that brings this into perspective. A gambling man dies and goes to the afterlife, and is given a beautiful penthouse, lots of luxury and no limit to food and drink, and, of course, women. They tell him that he can go to the casino every day, and when he goes, he always wins. After a period of time, it becomes boring. There’s no challenge. Everything is pretty much handed to him. He finally realizes that this is hell, not heaven.

In heaven, we will have purpose and it won’t just be playing harps and singing praise, although I like the sound of that job and I wouldn’t complain if that’s what I get. I love music and I know God does, too. The point is that we aren’t meant for idleness. That’s why we have the phrase “The devil makes work for idle hands.”

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We weren’t born to struggle, but when the Nachach (serpent) tempted Eve and Adam, we became subjected to toil and struggle. Originally, we were the guardians of earth, to tend to the plants and the flocks and the herds. It wasn’t going to be difficult — the animals mingled with us then like our household pets do now. There wasn’t going to be the pain and suffering and difficulty that we have now.

We will have fulfilling work to do when we get home. It’s going to be amazing.

So in keeping with our Father’s love for us, He has wonderful things that await us and we will be whole and happy. And loved, of course.

I think we have a warped concept of love, anyway, and that’s another part of the original lie. The serpent knew we were vulnerable, new to the family — which he was jealous of — and took advantage of our newness by causing sin. The angels who sinned, and there are many, did so because they were jealous. They thought God was making the earth for them, not us. They wanted it for themselves — they thought they deserved the reward. See? Even God’s first children had no clue what His plans were. They were there when he made it — it says so in Job (I think 38), but that doesn’t mean they understood why. Maybe if they had known that it wasn’t for them, they wouldn’t have cheered so much. I think only God knows the real deal. It would seem a reasonable answer.

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So that is why the answer to our challenges here should be DO ALL THINGS WITH LOVE FOR GOD. How is that so hard for us? Because we make it hard to love us. We can’t handle true love because all this has made us forget how loved we are, and the guilt of our sin makes us feel unworthy of His perfect love. The problem with that is His love for us never faltered, never failed. It’s our failing that keeps us out of feeling that warm, enveloping true love that never went away. Once we can accept that He loves us with perfect love and unbridled affection, I think we do better.

We know we aren’t perfect. We know we fall short daily on what we need to be doing and a lot of us are so tied up in ourselves that we don’t understand why everything has to be so hard.

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That is the power that we keep giving to evil, that we have continuously fed since the fall in Eden. There are so many that have drowned out that voice we have heard in our souls since we were conceived.

That voice. That whisper that told us who we are and how much we’re loved from the moment that God chose for us to be here. Some of us have heard it all our lives. Some of us have it drowned out by parents or grandparents or someone who has become desensitized to the heinousness of evil and stopped hearing the love permanently. Those are the ones evil has completely conquered.

I have heard his voice all my life. There has never been a time where I didn’t hear him. Every time right and wrong were at odds, He told me what right was. I didn’t doubt it at all and I wouldn’t care if everyone thought I’m a nut job. No, I’m not. I’m in communication with God, which is our natural state. Who’s the nut now?

As scripture says, He knew us before we were formed in the womb. I am absolutely certain that He speaks to us as long as we’ll listen to Him, but when we stop hearing Him or ignoring His voice, we lose that tether and it becomes easier to blend into the world and the evils therein.

D