Thursday, November 2, 2017

Who knows?  God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.     Jonah 3:9

        Remember when you were a kid and you did something wrong?  You worried about what punishment was going to be levied.  The fear of what was to come was worse than the eventual punishment.  That’s how ancient people often felt about a mercurial God.  I can’t imagine the stress of sitting around wondering how God was going to punish me for my wrongdoings.  But one of the great blessings of Christ’s coming is that we have a new understanding of God and a new relationship with him; one in which God is focused on forgiveness and recon-ciliation, not punishment.  
            We might still suffer the human consequences of foolish actions or wrong choices, but we won’t be sitting like mischief-makers outside the principal’s office, wondering what our fate will be.  We already know that God loves us, forgives us, and renews us.  What a wonderful change for the better!
©Carol Dean Henn, 2017