Reality 101 #10

The weed referred to in the story was a plant called a tare (see the last posting). When they first sprout, tares look just like wheat. It is only as the plants mature that the farmer would realize that some of what was growing in his field was in fact garbage. His employees suggested that it might be a god idea to pull the tares up, leaving the wheat with more room to grow. But the farmer understood that this was impossible. The crop had reached the point where the roots of the tares were intertwined with the roots of the wheat. You couldn’t pull up the one without pulling up the other. The only solution would be to wait until the crop matured. Then you could pull up all the plants and separate the good from the bad.

God’s ultimate purpose is to create free-will beings who will choose to live within the embrace of His perfect love and eternal joy. Not everyone will make this choice. We know that some of the angels choose to reject a life lived in perfect harmony and total intimacy with God. We also know that eventually a certain portion of the human race will make that same choice. It’s not that they want to go to hell, it’s that they ultimately will be unwilling to give up their independence.

All of which leads to this question: how can God create a universe where those who will ultimately choose to be with Him will not have to pay some of the consequences of those who will ultimately reject Him. And the answer to the question, apparently, is that it’s just not possible. We are trapped down here in a place that is far less than perfect where all of us are paying a part of the price for sin.

Aging, poverty, illness, loneliness, sadness, war, and anything else you can think of that is less than perfect is a consequence. All of these things are part of our world because of sin. We are all paying the price together. Some of us seem to be paying a little more and some of us seem to be paying a little less, but we are all paying that price together.