If my grade rouns up from the 79.5 to an 80, I will actually get a C+!!!!!!

I really hate ambiguous answers. If you ever just REALLY want to annoy me, let me ask a specific question, and then give me an ambiguous answer. It does the trick every time. I like things to be black and white, and hardly ever shades of grey. Perhaps it is my tendency to want certainty in everything, and to know everything I can about things I want to know about. I always enjoy having a very deep understanding of subjects, especially when it comes to God, Christianity, and of course, the Bible.

What a great Pharisee I would make, standing there with my checklist, checking things off, “Went to church, check! Took the Lord’s Supper, check! Put money in the offering plate, check! Don’t murder anyone, check!” But there are a lot of things, especially in the New Testament, that aren’t that certain. Don’t get me wrong, I think the things that need to be understood, that are essential to salvation are clearly outlined there. However, God doesn’t give us a specific ‘going to Heaven’ checklist and for a long time that really annoyed me. It annoyed me because I thought, “How can I be sure that I am not missing something. What if I try really hard and then miss that one thing and then go to Hell?” But I now understand that question truly showed my lack of understanding of what God really wants from us.

If I were to be saved based upon some checklist of thou shalts, and thou shalt not’s, then what is the need for God’s grace? Did he send his son to die in vain? Don’t get me wrong, I am not discounting his commandments. Nor do I think that we can just go sin willingly so that God will be able to show his wonderful grace by forgiving us of all those extra sins. But my point is that if you are worried about appearance alone, it would be like putting a Band-Aid on a severed limb and saying, “Oh yeah, that looks good. No one will ever know the difference.”

People are kind of like onions. There are layers upon layers of things covering up the inside, the heart, the part that matters. And it is my opinion that throughout time, the heart has always been, and always will be what matters to God. There are certain things that he asks us to do, such as Baptism, being faithful, etc. but those actions are just layers of the onion that is the human psyche, which still goes back to one’s heart. It can be reasonably deduced from this that if one’s heart is in the correct place, their actions will follow according to God’s plan because they will have the desire to serve him. And if they don’t have all the answers, they will do the best they know how. And if we did have all the answers then we would probably sit here with checklists checking off our good deeds and forget about the fact that what God cares about is a person’s heart.

I think that has been demonstrated again and again in the Bible in stories such as the widow’s mite, David and his men eating the showbread, the thief on the cross… I am sure I could come up with many more examples if given ample time. I think sometimes we are too quick to judge, and that can be hard because we have to make some judgments based upon what we do know of people, and their actions, and God’s word. And I am certainly not saying that it is bad to have book chapter and verse for everything we do, as long as we want that because we love God and want to do his will in every matter, and not just because we want to be right.

I also think that when we see someone who appears to be trying to follow God, but isn’t exactly doing everything according to the Bible, we should LOVINGLY show them the way. And also be open to the fact that some things in the Bible are subjective as well. Although I think I am correctly interpreting the word, I could be wrong. So I really should keep that in mind, and understand that some people who may be doing some things differently from me may be trying to follow the Bible, and really do believe that they are. Sometimes that interpretation can be biased based upon things they were always taught, but then again, mine may be as well.

So back to the original thought, often times when a person has died in my life that I have loved, who seemed to love God but just really disagreed with me on some things, I would wonder where their final destination was. And I would just wish, wish, wish so badly that I could just know. Because I have always felt that where you go when you die isn’t as cut and dry as we’d like for it to be. But recently it has occurred to me that perhaps this ambiguity is just part of the wisdom in God’s plan. If I had known that the person went to Heaven, it might be a relief, but what if instead I knew that they went to Hell? How terrible would it be to live with that knowledge? And what if I did know they went to Heaven? Would I then think it was okay to be a slacker and not do my best to follow God’s plan because if old so-and-so made it Heaven, then surely I will.

Obviously if man was created in God's image it is no surprise to me that God is like an onion too. And the more layers I go through the more I discover that his wisdom is so amazing, and endless. He is amazing. And yet, Without going through all the layers I already know what is at the core. The most obvious thing, which is love. True, pure, love.