God of Life

I hope lightning doesn't come out of sky and strike me for saying this... 

God ought to smite me. 

God ought to smite you. 

In fact, the greatest thing we are afraid of when it comes to God is His smiting power and His apparent willingness to use it. 

We have been taught, usually in churches, that God wants to take sinners like us and throw us into the pit of eternal fire, out in the darkness where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth." We have been taught to fear God's fury, and this has been used as a motivator toward obedience...because fear can never lead to the greater things God wants for us like love, grace, mercy, or justice; fear can only lead to obedience. 

So we have developed this faith where we are supposed to be obedient above all other things, and only that so that we don't end up on the wrong end of God's smite-y hand. 

Here's the thing, though. If you actually read the Bible, especially the New Testament, there's not a lot of smiting. Where you do see it, primarily in the Old Testament, God often shows a lot of remorse. And where you do see it, it's not God destroying His people who sorta kinda still got it wrong; it's the other peoples, who don't care a hill of beans about the Lord or His ways who are reduced to a pile of rubble and ashes. 

There's not a single character in all of the Bible who was trying to follow God, who wanted to do right, who was seeking the right way, and was smitten by the Lord. 

Because for as afraid of it as we are, God doesn't really want to smite anyone. He doesn't want anyone to die. 

He just wants us to stop sinning. (Ezekiel 18:23)

God disciplines His people far more than He smites them. 

God teaches His people far more than He disciplines them. 

God guides His people far more than He teaches them. 

God rescues His people far more than He abandons them. 

God loves His people. Period. 

So if you, like so many others, are afraid of God's smite-y hand (which was such a beautiful play on God's mighty hand that I simply had to use it again), rest easy, my friend. God doesn't want you to die. He just wants you to stop sinning. 

And don't you want that, too?