"O Lord, by [your works] men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live." Isaiah 38:16
It is true that our destinies are in our own hands, but there are only two destinies to pick from: into the will of God, or out of it. We may end up in endless possible places: as a missionary, a millionaire, a lower or upper middle class citizen, a happy person with a good life, a horrendous monster, and so on, endless possibilities layered with endless variables, as far as the imagination can stretch and as deep as it can dig. For all the possibilities, however, they all have as their basis one of two choices: with God's will, or without it. Either your life is a living amalgamation of surrenders to the will of God, or you have consistently rejected it and consequently have been consistently left behind by it. Those are the only two ways to go. They both branch out into endless possible paths, but all those endless paths began at one of those two choices, and they take you one step closer to either Heaven or Hell.
Humanity cannot escape that choice, and that is most surely aggravating. I think most people want neither to accept nor reject God's will, but simply for God to leave them alone. Unfortunately, that wishes is granted in Hell, for Hell is God leaving you alone for all eternity. "By Him men live, and in Him is the life of my spirit." Outside of God, there is no life, love, joy, peace, hope, or anything that is "good and green" in this world. As Lewis put it, "God cannot give man happiness outside of Himself," not because He is cruel or selfish, but because "these is no such thing." Life is found in Him alone. No matter what our excuses, any middle ground we invent, even the most logical and noble, leads away to Hell if it does not have God in its equation. We choose either God or not-God, and not-God is Hell. We can choose to reject Him in the end, but we cannot escape the consequence of our choice.
"Life and Light of men,
All other ground is sinking sand..."
-Jon Vowell
It is true that our destinies are in our own hands, but there are only two destinies to pick from: into the will of God, or out of it. We may end up in endless possible places: as a missionary, a millionaire, a lower or upper middle class citizen, a happy person with a good life, a horrendous monster, and so on, endless possibilities layered with endless variables, as far as the imagination can stretch and as deep as it can dig. For all the possibilities, however, they all have as their basis one of two choices: with God's will, or without it. Either your life is a living amalgamation of surrenders to the will of God, or you have consistently rejected it and consequently have been consistently left behind by it. Those are the only two ways to go. They both branch out into endless possible paths, but all those endless paths began at one of those two choices, and they take you one step closer to either Heaven or Hell.
Humanity cannot escape that choice, and that is most surely aggravating. I think most people want neither to accept nor reject God's will, but simply for God to leave them alone. Unfortunately, that wishes is granted in Hell, for Hell is God leaving you alone for all eternity. "By Him men live, and in Him is the life of my spirit." Outside of God, there is no life, love, joy, peace, hope, or anything that is "good and green" in this world. As Lewis put it, "God cannot give man happiness outside of Himself," not because He is cruel or selfish, but because "these is no such thing." Life is found in Him alone. No matter what our excuses, any middle ground we invent, even the most logical and noble, leads away to Hell if it does not have God in its equation. We choose either God or not-God, and not-God is Hell. We can choose to reject Him in the end, but we cannot escape the consequence of our choice.
"Life and Light of men,
All other ground is sinking sand..."
-Jon Vowell
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