"God loved his creation so much that he gave his one and only Son over to death- the only way to atone for everyone’s sins with the sacrifice of a perfect man- that whoever will believe in Jesus and trust him with his or her life shall not die in sin (a just punishment) but instead live beyond physical death in eternity with God himself." John 3:16 (paraphrase)
We’ve probably all got our personal lists of despised activities and attitudes, ranging from serious to trivial. When we hear of someone doing something on our lists, we mentally assign appropriate punishments. If I were God, I would….
Years ago in Ft. Pierce, Florida, where we lived at the time, a young boy--only three or four--was murdered by a man who was supposedly taking care of him. The boy eventually died after being sexually assaulted with a household item of some kind—a chair leg, or a hose… I don’t remember. (Some details you don’t want to know.) The little boy’s name was Benjamin. I do remember that.
I also remember thinking that an appropriate sentence for Benjamin’s killer would be assault with an object of similar size-to-age correlation, forcing him to endure exactly what he had forced upon Benjamin. Even then, however, the killer wouldn’t have experienced the sheer terror of betrayal, the toddler-sense of being loved and cherished and safe turning inside out in the instant his babysitter became, right before his eyes, a beast.
Oddly, I’ve never been asked to sit on a jury.
I fear I’m growing less tolerant over time, not more. My grace is so pitifully limited, my love so devastatingly finite. God, on the other hand, has no limits at all to his love, grace, forgiveness, and pardon. “Whoever believes…” the Bible says. “Whoever comes…”
When six-year-old Adam Walsh was taken from a shopping mall in Hollywood, Florida in 1981 and decapitated, I was the mother of two young children. Rocking the baby to sleep one summer night shortly after the tragedy occurred, I remember praying for his family when the Holy Spirit whispered, “Can you pray for the person who murdered him?”
I tried. I’m pretty sure I mouthed the right words, but God, seeing my heart, found no compassion there. Knowing that Jesus had died for the sins of all, that he had died for my own sins… at that moment I wished for there to be limits on God’s goodness. Hell wasn’t just meant for Satan and his angels, surely, but for his agents of pain and suffering such as this criminal.
When my own shortcomings grow into actual wrongdoing…when I do not fall into sin so much as I leap into it…as a child would leap into a pile of dry leaves shouting “Wheeeeee!” is the way my friend Doug Easterday describes it…then I want my heavenly Father’s mercy to know no bounds. When you sin, however, especially when you sin against me!…not so much.
When I began writing this, I intended to discuss one of my pet peeves—people who claim to “be there” for you who clearly are not. The paradox is, of course, that God, who created us all to be in intimate relationship with him, not only has the most people crying out to him in need but also the largest capacity to meet those needs. Through some mysterious, mystical way, impossible for our tiny minds to grasp, he actually is “there for us” at all times, whether we acknowledge his presence, desire it, or push it away with all the anger of a little child being made to be still…until the child tires of struggling, relaxes in the loving yet firm arms, and falls peacefully to sleep. “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, NASV).
Benjamin’s murderer is, as far as I know, still alive. Adam Walsh’s murderer died in prison. One still has time to hear the gospel and believe, if he hasn’t already. It is possible the other cried out to God for mercy before it was too late. We may be very surprised at some of the people we rub shoulders with in heaven.
And some of them may be surprised to see us.
Permission to use with acknowledgement of source.
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