One of the feelings I’ve come across - a feeling which has been explored frequently, is the conviction of a man who says he rejects the Heavenly proposition because the thought of loved ones being in the bad place is too shocking a proposition to contemplate. To this I can only respond with the following: how on earth are we to know what another person’s relationship with God is like deep down? Consider yourself for a second, and then consider the person you think knows you best of all (call that person A). Now consider your own self-knowledge, your awareness of your real self and see how comparably meagre A’s knowledge of you really is. Your most personal and secretive thoughts, your inner emotional layers that just cannot be conveyed into words, your proprietary fears, ambitions, desires, insecurities, hopes and dreams – who really knows the real you? Nobody but yourself and, of course God, who knows you infinitely better than you know yourself.
If there is on thing that is perfectly clear when contemplating God, it is that one must consider these things only in relation to how this truth affects the self, for you cannot possibly hope to know the truth of another person’s situation. An indignant man could reject God all the way because he can’t bear to think of spending eternity away from his loved ones, and yet never realise that they were going to be with God all along. In other words, he could stay away from the party He was invited to only to find that all those he cares about had accepted their invitations, but not in way that he could realise. The truth is, God's relationship with man (even those who we presume were unbelievers) is, I think, far more alive than our own imagination permits us to recognise. We all know that spark of hope that fires up in us the moment we think we’re onto some deep truth about ourselves and our own destiny – those fleeting moments that suggest this is only the prelude to a much more exciting eternal story, and that maybe, just maybe, there is part for us to play. And like I said, God is not some inert monument or static object out there – He is a personality (albeit a complex one) and if one wants to know Him and have revelation, He must be seen as He desires to be seen –and naturally that view of Him must be in accordance with our own personal journey and our own “..most personal and secretive thoughts, inner emotional layers that just cannot be conveyed into words, proprietary fears, ambitions, desires, insecurities, hopes and dreams” – not anybody else’s. You can only work out God in relation to your proximate distance from Him – there is no other way, for you have no real clue about what exactly (stress EXACTLY) is going on in someone’s else’s mind, and should not dismiss contemplation on these grounds.
If there is on thing that is perfectly clear when contemplating God, it is that one must consider these things only in relation to how this truth affects the self, for you cannot possibly hope to know the truth of another person’s situation. An indignant man could reject God all the way because he can’t bear to think of spending eternity away from his loved ones, and yet never realise that they were going to be with God all along. In other words, he could stay away from the party He was invited to only to find that all those he cares about had accepted their invitations, but not in way that he could realise. The truth is, God's relationship with man (even those who we presume were unbelievers) is, I think, far more alive than our own imagination permits us to recognise. We all know that spark of hope that fires up in us the moment we think we’re onto some deep truth about ourselves and our own destiny – those fleeting moments that suggest this is only the prelude to a much more exciting eternal story, and that maybe, just maybe, there is part for us to play. And like I said, God is not some inert monument or static object out there – He is a personality (albeit a complex one) and if one wants to know Him and have revelation, He must be seen as He desires to be seen –and naturally that view of Him must be in accordance with our own personal journey and our own “..most personal and secretive thoughts, inner emotional layers that just cannot be conveyed into words, proprietary fears, ambitions, desires, insecurities, hopes and dreams” – not anybody else’s. You can only work out God in relation to your proximate distance from Him – there is no other way, for you have no real clue about what exactly (stress EXACTLY) is going on in someone’s else’s mind, and should not dismiss contemplation on these grounds.
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