If we persist in our rebellion against God, despite His pleas for us to do otherwise, we are setting ourselves up for eternal despair. In hell, there will be no more chance of “reaching forward” — no chance of ever being anything but lost.
Hell will be the final abandonment of those who have rejected God: God will turn away, for eternity, from those who have turned away from Him. And the anguish of hell will be knowing it could have been otherwise, if we had not refused God’s love.
When we long for something and that longing ends up being disappointed, the worst thing we can do is close up our hearts. That type of play-it-safe conservatism is deadly to the human spirit, and no one is pleased with it but our spiritual enemy.
Faith does not ignore questions or minimize their importance, but it does exercise patience. Faith is willing to wait and see what happens. History is, after all, a story, and in a story, the conflicts don’t usually get resolved until the end.
It is through many tribulations that we enter heaven. So isn’t some kind of celebration in order when the fight has been fought and the race has been run? When we act as if it is better to have our temporal life in front of us, what are we thinking?
Don’t we want to graduate from this school when the time comes? And if, contrary to what we expect, the Lord indicates that our training is finished sooner rather than later, where is the problem in that . . . if we’re reaching forward?
Though the way of escape will always be provided, it has to be taken before it will do us any good. The Lord’s protection and help are not automatic or involuntary — they have to be appropriated by a free-will choice to say “No!” to sin.
Even in terms of our short-term spiritual growth, we need to make more specific plans than we sometimes do. If all we have is a vague, unspecific desire to make progress, we won’t move ahead much. We have to commit ourselves to some specific goals.
A. W. Tozer wrote, “Strange as it may be, the holiest souls who have ever lived have earned the reputation for being pessimistic.” Have you ever considered that spiritual growth might require you to start being more pessimistic about some things?
Joseph was thankful that his brothers had sold him into Egyptian slavery. Such “useful” things are obviously harder to attribute to God and to give Him thanks for. But Paul said, “In everything, give thanks,” and I believe he meant just what he said.
