“Why?” — “My Manifesto” (Grace Note #71)

“Why?” — “My Manifesto” (Grace Note #71)

Written by Gary L. Clendenon, August 5, 2019

No doubt, like me, you are struggling with the grief of undesired, uninvited evil which invaded our lives this past week—dozens of innocent people murdered senselessly. It is human to ask “Why?”—to try and make sense of the senseless. As I have been pondering this, I came to an answer that gave me some relief from the insanity of it all:

“The persons who did this were not loved well enough.”

I’m not pointing fingers here or looking for blame, but these persons’ families, friends, churches, cities, cultures, and society somehow failed to love these people well enough for them not to do what they did. So, they ended up acting out from a place of built-up resentment, anger, and hate that reached a breaking point that led to this extreme violence.

I was satisfied with this answer for a moment, but then a memory nudged my mind. If what I was proposing were true, then if every person was loved properly, then we would never have violence, harm, murder, or evil. Right?

Sadly, that is wrong. As I thought back—all the way back—to the very origin of evil, I remembered that it began in a setting of Perfection! Everything was perfect in Heaven. There was no “Lack of Love” there. There was no lack of anything good or positive there. There was only perfect Love everywhere between all created beings.

And yet, even in that perfect family, society, and culture, things went bad. How is that possible? Does this mean that Love is not the answer?

As much as I believe that Love is the answer and does solve many of life’s problems, there is an aspect of Love that is not discussed enough, I think. In fact, I believe it is the reason why evil and harm originated and continue to this day—as we saw freshly this past week.

In the very beginning, the way GOD chose to interact with His beings in the Universe was based on a dangerous and risky concept called “Free will”. GOD could have chosen not to include this aspect in the creation of all the beings He created, but, without it, these beings would only Love and Worship GOD because they had no other choice, and where’s the Joy in that? Would you want someone to be forced to love you without choice?

I know that, for some, a forced love sounds better than no love—kinda good, very stable and seemingly beneficial, but the Ultimate Joy is being loved by someone who, not having to love you—in spite of their freedom to love anyone else in the world—has chosen you and wants to love you! This is the height and epitome of Love: to be freely chosen, wanted, and desired.

It is for this reason that GOD chose to allow the beings He created the freedom to choose not to participate in a Loving relationship with Him or other created beings. This was the choice Lucifer made in a Perfect Heaven. He chose to go his own way and try his hand at living life outside of GOD’s setup. He believed he could do life better than GOD and even convinced 1/3 of the beings in Heaven that his way was worth fighting for. It was this “Better way” that Lucifer and his followers brought to Planet Earth.

The planet Earth was just finished being set up, and everything was Perfect. Again, as with all His beings, GOD chose to create Humans with “Free will”. GOD put a symbolic tree in their perfect home that represented the opportunity—should they ever desire it—to choose a different way of living than GOD’s. If that was their choice, all they had to do was eat the fruit from that tree. They were told the story of the downfall of Lucifer and warned that he would try to get them to join in his rebellion. They were advised to stay away from the “Tree of Free Will” where Lucifer, now Satan, waited to tempt them.

Ever since that fateful day that our original Parents ate the fruit, we have had the opportunity to see the results of that choice played out. History is full of the ugly results of humans freely choosing their way over GOD’s Way.

Even through all the ugliness that is the mess of human history, GOD has continued to attempt to woo us back to His Way. GOD desires every human to freely chose Him—to want to be a part of His Kingdom.

What used to be a Perfect world—easily, fully, and readily showing the Love and Perfection of GOD’s Ways—has become a War Zone almost completely hiding the once obvious Beauty and Planned Perfection of GOD’s creation. What was once an Idyllic Paradise of perfect relationships has now become a gigantic Rescue Mission.

Every day the Spirit of GOD and the Angels of GOD go out to battle the Forces of Darkness to bring back a glimpse of what once was and will someday be again. The battle still centers over the Free will of every person with each side fighting to convince each person to choose them. GOD with the weapons of Hope, Light, and Love. Satan with Discouragement, Darkness, and Hate.

Because of Adam and Eve’s choices, GOD’s enemy seems to have the upper hand. Humans are now genetically wired to default toward Satan’s side. Flipping the tables, GOD now has to convince humans to choose His side in the same way that Satan once had to convince Adam and Eve to choose his way.

GOD’s job of convincing humans is made doubly difficult by the fact that the number one tool of Satan is deception—lies, trickery, manipulation, and complete falsehoods. With this tool, Satan is completely happy for humans to believe anything—absolutely anything—as long as it keeps them from the Truth of GOD’s Love.

So, here we are, today, grieving another tragic loss of life and asking “Why?” As I have outlined, there are several answers to that question:

1. Because of sin, unless we consciously choose otherwise, we humans default to Darkness.

2. Because we are all participants in a planetary war. And, in war, there are always casualties.

3. Because GOD created us with Free will, as crazy as it seems, some of us will freely choose—even with perfect conditions—the side against GOD.

So, what can we do?

1. Of course, we grieve, for as John Donne so astutely stated, “All mankind is of one author. Any...death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” (1)

2. Recognizing the true nature of the ongoing, mostly unseen war, freely choose GOD’s side in all things and do everything we can do to align ourselves with Him.

3. Make our best efforts to love ourselves and everyone around us well, so that these events can be minimized as much as humanly possible and not blamed on a “Failure to Love”.

4. Live every day fully, with the knowledge that it could be our last. Embrace the Gift of Life and Joyfully share it with others. Don’t give in to the lie that today is “just another day”. Celebrate Life!

(1) John Donne, Meditation 17