Why give free will? Although, free will gives the opportunity to do wrong, it also gives us the opportunity to do right but mostly free will allows us to LOVE, to truly LOVE without being forced too. If I made you love me, would that be love? If I knew that my husband loved me because he was forced too out of fear then I would know that I wasn't really being loved. We are created in the image of God. Is His want of love any different than us whom He created? When my son does wrong, I am disappointed, but when he does right, fireworks go off inside my heart because I know that he chose right on his own accord, out of his own free will. Do you punish for the rest of his life? If you look at the story of the garden that way I suppose one could see that but, if you look at it through the eyes of mercy and overwhelming love one would see it another way. Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the tree. They did anyway. If you tell your child the stove is hot and he touches it anyway, a loving Father doesn't say ha, ha now you have a burn! He takes his child and he holds his child and weeps with his child. He tends to the wound. The wound is still there but they endure it together. That is what I see in the story of the garden. The father gave a warning, they did not listen and now Him and they are enduring the consequences TOGETHER! Yes, God could have just erased it, started over...but that's not love, not really. When people are forced to endure through something together, a love that is overwhelming begins to grow. Soon those people who are enduring together are like one. They will fight for one another, cry with each other, rejoice with each other! There is another side too, sometimes when people are forced to endure something together, imperfect as we are, we will turn on each other. We will rebel and buck. That is the choice we make. And God puts us in this same position. Do we turn to Him and cling to Him in times of great fear or overwhelming stress? Or do we turn on Him and blame Him and hate Him because we did not follow His fatherly command. And now we have consequences? Something I would like to add, when I tell my child "don't play in the street, don't touch the stove it's hot, stay away from people you don't know." These in a sense are commands. I don't tell them these things because I am all powerful, I give them these commands because I LOVE THEM! They are my very heart running around on two legs. I can only know that this too, is how Our Father feels towards His children...YOU! He feels that way about YOU! His heart breaks when yours breaks and his heart breaks when you think He likes it when your hurting! We CAN break our Father's heart...WE BREAK IT EVERYDAY! God didn't have Jesus come to earth to cover His mistake...He brought Jesus to earth to cover our's...
the TRUTH in LOVE,
Heidi Shepherd
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