“Thank you for coming to my birthday party.” The adorable, little voice of my four-year-old nephew carried over my cell phone as I was on my way home from his house. We talked for awhile about how much I loved him and how I loved snuggling with him and his new Spiderman blanket throughout the evening. We said goodnight and he gave the phone to his mom. Cute as a button. 🙂
But then…
My sister-in-law got on the phone and proceeded to explain how when they thought little Cooper was snuggled in his bed, they instead heard him pad into their room and exclaim, “Mommy! I forgot to tell Eric’s mommy something! (I adore being known as Eric’s mommy. 🙂 ) My brother and his wife picked up the phone and called me, but it was my little nephew’s idea. His very own! Do you have any idea how my heart absolutely melted at the thought of a precious toddler lying in his bed thinking about his auntie?
Which then got me to thinking…
I have had people ask me, and honestly, have asked myself, how God could possibly allow evil to lurk in the world. How could He permit one man to commit unspeakable atrocities against another. I argue with myself that He could easily prevent the evil. However, in God’s perfect will, He really cannot control the actions of men. In order to do that, He would have to take away our free will. Our ability to choose. And in so doing, He would take away our ability to choose to love Him.
You see, if my brother would have told his son to call Auntie Sara and tell her thank you for coming, I still would have loved to hear his precious little voice. But, it would not have melted my heart. We also could train our children to consistently tell us they love us at 8:00 am and 8:00 pm every single day. We would have some sense of satisfaction in the consistent and constant way that they obey us and yes, that would bring us some pleasure. But, not the same kind of pleasure as when they look up at us with their adorable, life-filled eyes, and spontaneously blurt out their love.
In the same way, God could have programmed us to go around repeating over and over “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come” Revelations 4:8 , just like he programmed the angels. He obviously enjoys hearing that since He did create them to do this. But he wanted us, as humans, to love him passionately, spontaneously, and by choice. He wanted us to think of him as we drift off to sleep. To serve and worship him freely. Not because we have to, but because we want to.
From the power of choice comes the ability to love…
Is there anything that you forgot to tell God today?
