Gypsy Mama's prompt: Hard Love

The Hard Love:

God: Perfection.  Power.  Awesomeness.  Holiness.  Love.

My daughter asked me not long ago, "If God is loving, why doesn't He make everybody believe in Him so nobody would have to go to hell?"

I winced at this question, but it was spoken in sincerity, a true searching for truth.  One cannot deny the seeking heart.  Questions about God are so deep.

I paused, asking God for guidance. 

I picked up her stuffed toy and asked,
"What would you rather have: a real dog or a stuffed dog?"

She thought a moment and said, "A real dog."

"Why?"  I asked again.

"I don't know.  Because it is real and can move around."

"Yes, that's right.  And do you think that because it is real, it has to chose to love you, accept you, obey you?  You have to love it and train it and take care of it, because it needs you.  Do you think God would want creatures that are like stuffed toys, just obeying Him and loving Him because He makes them...or do you think He'd rather us love him and obey Him because we realize and accept His love...even though sometimes love can be hard?  Sometimes He has to show us what is right and it's not always easy.  But He loves us."

Hard love.  It offers heaven while realizing there is a hell.

After all, that is why He died, so that we that we could be spared from it.

Three hours in total darkness, away from God the Father.  He took hell so we could receive His salvation.

The embrace of hard love to give free salvation.

"For God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world;

but that the world through Him

might be saved."

John 3:16