Who God Is

O LORD, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help. [Psalm 86.5]

This is Who God Is. 

If we knew nothing but what Psalm 86.5 says about God, we would have all the information we need to understand life.

But there is a caveat...

Most people agree that the difficulties we all face in life are ultimately the result of sin. 

Some would even go so far as to acknowledge that these difficulties are curses (and rightly so, according to Deuteronomy 28). 

Few people, however, are willing to admit that curses are the evidence of sin thus signaling a need for forgiveness and therefore thus requiring repentance.

Instead, people en masse ignore the simplicity of Psalm 86.5 and proudly refuse to ask God for forgiveness and help. 

To confuse matters, people defend their refusal to repent by mentally and verbally defiling the goodness of God and His readiness to forgive. How? With a religious "doctrine of suffering." The various human ideas and reasoning that yield a doctrine of unpredictable suffering (not to be confused with predictable persecution) present God's will as some unknown unpredictable force that might hurt them just as possibly as it might heal them. It's all up to "God's will" as if God's will is a random unknowable thing.

The damnable result then of randomizing God's will is an ill-begotten acceptance of the curse of suffering without even the slightest thought of repentance. The "damnable result" therefore is unforgiveness - because forgiveness only applies to the repentant (repentance is the first act of faith).

When we know Who God Is, the "doctrine of suffering" makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, the doctrine of suffering is the work of a deceiver whose very defined purpose is to kill, steal, and destroy (imagine that).

Father, may I be found repentant and full of faith in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. May my lifestyle of humble repentance before You, Holy Father, be viewed as an overbearing and unrelenting rebuke to the enemy and his lies. So be it.