I will not let fear of hell motivate me. I will not let fear of hell motivate me. I will not let... You get the picture. Right now I am struggling with the idea that fear motivates me much of the time.
When it is not motivating me, I am expecting it to motivate others. I expect people to cringe at the thought of hell, to change because of it, to be transformed rather than suffer it. Deep down though, I know that this is a really stupid idea if God is anything other than a raving mad man bent on raining death and destruction on all who oppose him. At least I am aware of the futility of having the prospect of hell move me to any real relationship with God. At least I am aware of the futility of the prospect of hell moving anyone to a deeper understanding of God. At least I am aware.
This does not mean that I don't believe in hell. I do. The problem is that I have absolutely no idea what it is other than a bad place that I don't want to visit. There is another problem in my belief in the afterlife that I have just realized that is much more dangerous for my spiritual growth. You see, not only is my idea of hell motivating people to have a richer more full relationship with God ludicrous, my idea of being motivated by the promise of a better life in heaven is just as ludicrous as my idea of hell.
Here is what I mean. I am afraid that many times believers give up on working to make this world a better place because, "this world will never be like heaven." We decide that justice for all is a pipe dream. We decide that we will always have the poor with us, shoot even Jesus said that, so why fight poverty? We decide that we don't need to clean up our environment because this world is temporary anyway. I am afraid that my belief in Heaven, as wonderful as I am sure that it is, is helping me to make this world more like hell.
My guess is that I am not alone. The promise of heaven allows me to put off things that I know I should do. I suspect that it does for others too. It allows me to tolerate much more than I should. I think that this is also true for others. Heaven, at least my belief in heaven, allows me to rest on my laurels. Wow, isn't a total misunderstanding on my part! I know that I must not be alone. I see evangelicals vote for people who will allow us to maintain our high standard of living even if it means the poorest of this planet get poorer. I continue to see evangelicals bless God for the wealth that allows them to drive a Lincoln Navigator to the post office, alone.
I don't mean to sound judgemental, and please forgive me if I do. It just seems a hard pill to swallow to realize that the life that Jesus calls me to is radically different from the life I choose to live. It is very convicting. I am getting better though. I am starting to make decisions that I hope will help to make God's will happen here just like it does in heaven. I have even started a new mantra... I will not wait on the promise of heaven. I will not wait on the promise of heaven...
1 comment:
You realize of course that this is very much in opposition to the Baptist way of thinking. Laura says that she still has horrible memories of being shown films at church that were supposed to depict Satan and hell in the most shocking and scariest manner. Should we be scared into being believers? Is that really genuine faith? I think not, and furthermore, I believe that faith based on fear is probably very benign and not prone to being spread very easily. I also have to believe that there is a lot of good that we can do here on Earth and God fully intends for us do it.
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