The Driving Force

I am sitting in my big chair staring out of our front windows at this storm that is tearing across the lower mainland. We have no power at our house, I can’t even make myself tea. We have no internet and since it is during the school year I am not reading any novels. So here I am, sitting in my big chair, watching the storm.

I’m thinking. This is nice, no distractions and all, but as the hour wears on, and I am still just sitting here and staring I am beginning to feel uneasy with the nothingness of this situation. To be honest (and I am a little ashamed in this), I am getting bored.  So my thoughts turn to spiritual things, particularly hell. 

 I have this thought or belief that hell isn’t necessarily fire and brim stone – rather it is just a place where God isn’t – at all. No grace, no joy, no hope, just utter depravity with no solution and complete loneliness. Sometimes I think about this and I can’t even fathom what that would be like. But today for some reason, maybe for lack of anything else to do in the storm, I think perhaps, I can wrap my mind around the horror of the nothingness that an eternity of hell must bring. The thought of this horrible place, where for the rest of all time there is nothing – just bitter loneliness,scares me to my core. This is my belief about hell. And it is terrifying. So my first thought in reaction to this is, "oh my goodness, I need to get right with God. I need to make sure I don’t die and end up in the hell of nothingness for the rest of eternity." I think, "I need to make sure all the people that I love know about this. I need to make sure that they don’t end up there either!"  But suddenly I stop in my tracks – because I realize I have this "turn or burn" mentality – or in my case, turn or spend eternity in nothingness with no God or his grace.

So I ask myself the question – am I running towards God, or away from hell? Theoretically they are the same. Hell IS real, and I have good reason to fear it and run from it. Gods wrath needs to be satisfied, it is part of his character and He does not change. Yet, I think that if the reason we trust in God is because what we fear his wrath then we are somehow missing the point. Because God is also a God of love. And we have all heard this so many times that sadly, sometimes it doesn’t hold the same weight as it should. Yet it should. God loves us. His just wrath was satisfied when Jesus died on the cross for us and our response to that should be one of eagerness. We should be running towards this God who gave literally everything for us rather than just running in his direction since we are frightened of the alternative.

So today I was saddened by my bored thoughts. I was sad that my first response to Gods character came from a place of selfish fear rather than a place of complete awe that I am loved beyond what my thoughts can even comprehend. What is driving your relationship with Jesus today? Don’t get me wrong, we should fear God – it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. Yet we shouldn’t be running away from hell, rather we should be running towards God with thankful and full hearts, in complete awe of the love that he has for us.