God's Answer, And Also How To Approach Disagreement With God, Using Scripture As A Guide
Today in my yoga studio, I found myself sitting on my mat thinking about the subject of fairness with God. I have believed for a long time that hell is a punishment that does not fit any crime, however horrible the crime may be. I thought about this and became enraged at God. How could he do this to anybody if he were so loving? How do you call this justice, when the definition of justice is 1) Just behavior or treatment, and most importantly 2) The quality of being fair and reasonable? I have struggled in my Christian faith a long time because I had not, in the past, found God to be fair and reasonable. I thought he was an outright tyrant, very unjust and extreme in his punishments. Furthermore, I thought that there was no reason to seek revenge in the first place, upon anyone at all, for vengefulness is not the way of love. I had been taught that blasphemy was a sin, and blasphemy is, put simply, speaking against God. So as a result I was afraid to express my anger toward God for this seeming unfairness and cruelty. However, today I discovered that by expressing myself in an appropriate manner, it is ok to question God, and He will answer. He will never put you down and say "This is not my child!" just because you got angry at him, like young children often do with their parents. Not to say that you are childish, it is simply a metaphor. This brings me to the first piece of scripture.
Ephesians 4:26-27 “In your anger do not sin”[a]: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, ...
What a relief to know that you are allowed to be angry in the first place! No matter who it is at, or what it's about. It is ok to be angry with God. He will patiently listen and give you the answers in time, if you just be patient and allow your mind to be calm so you can hear them. But, this scripture tells us that we should not sin in our anger. Do not utter blasphemies (and NEVER call the works of God's Holy Spirit the works of the devil or demons, which is the unpardonable sin) when your emotions get the best of you, but calmly ask God, in simple language, why he does things the way he does, or why he did or didn't do something for you. Whatever your question may be. In fact, and this brings me to my next scripture, God wants you to be truthful about how you feel, not hiding how you feel and pretending to love God when in your heart you are actually distant from Him and full of resentment toward Him. Revelation 3:15 says:
Revelation 3:15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!
I am hoping I got that out of the right context, because how I interpreted it is that God wants you to be honest about how you feel. Maybe He was referring to lukewarm Christians, but for our purposes, we will use it the way that I have interpreted it. I believe God wants a sincere relationship with us, and when we express our anger, it can actually deepen our relationship with our powerful creator. As for His answer to my burning question, how is hell fair, He gave me one simple answer. The answer is found in Matthew 11:30, and reads:
Matthew 11:30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Being a follower of Jesus is very simple and easy to do. God did not make the ascendance to heaven an impossible feat. And most of God's commands could be summed up in one word: Love. Just love. Love each other. Love God. And show this through your actions. Hell may be extreme, but God made it easy to avoid. So, if anyone is so evil that they cannot follow these commands, and so stubborn that they refuse to listen to Christ's simple teachings, then hell serves as a motivator, to light a literal fire under their butts to get stiff necked people to listen. And if they choose to reject Jesus knowing they will go to hell if they do, then they simply decided they would go there themselves.
So, I hope this helped to shed some light on this issue. I know it's something that deeply troubled me while I was struggling with it. My goal was to ease the minds of people suffering from a frightening feeling inside that they were doomed because they were angry with God. Do not fret, God loves you with all of His heart and it is not His will that he would lose a single one of you, He would rather soothe your anger by answering your questions then have you lost to hell because you got a little upset. He is a loving, loving father and He is not too small to take your anger, mind you you must express it respectfully and tactfully. He knows the human mind is designed to question and explore things, after all He created it. So, keep your hopes up. There is a future for you yet. You are not banished to Hell because of your feelings, which you can't help.
Much love and light to you all,
Savannah Williamson
