The Sheriff of Heaven

This may be hard for some of you to grasp, but my earliest remembrances are of going to church.  I don't remember anything the preacher said, because I didn't listen.  When I did listen, I didn't understand all he was talking about.  The part that I liked most about church was the singing.  Even the kids got to participate in that.  And if you went to a small church like me, you knew which songs would be used that morning when you discovered whose turn it was to lead the singing.

The happy times of going to church in those days were when church was over and the adults were visiting with each other.  That's when we got to play with our church friends.  There were some Sundays when we would talk my folks into inviting some of them over for Sunday lunch, and sometimes we would get invited to share lunch with other families.  There are lots of good memories there.

I suppose sometime during those years I began to develop a concept of God.  He was mentioned often in those sermons I didn't understand.  He was mentioned often at home.  As kids, we even played church and went through the motions of doing the things we did in church on Sunday.

I suppose that's when it happened.   I began to think about God as "heaven's sheriff."  He was sitting up in heaven watching everything we did and listening to everything we said, just hoping we would do something wrong so he could punish us.  At best, I thought he would total up all the bad things I did in a day, and then total up the good things I did in a day, and if the good was greater than the bad, everything would be fine.  If the opposite happened.........I didn't even want to think about it.  I will say if the bad outweighed the good, then I would be in the same classification as the devil, and if I did enough good, then God would react to my goodness by being like Santa Claus.

I also remember the day when I realized God was neither heaven's sheriff, nor was he Santa Claus.  He was not sitting in heaven waiting for me to do something wrong just so he could send me to hell.  I didn't know it at the time, but I must say he was not in heaven ready to bless me, in case I did something good.   That's where we parents often go wrong when we tell our young kids, "God doesn't like you if you do bad things."  We could not be more wrong!   It is God, and his love for us, through the death of his Son, who brings us be transformed and redeemed.  He loves us that much.

Yes, God still sees and hears all the wrong we do.  We commit sins knowing he is aware of them instantly.  That doesn't mean he seeks revenge for our wrongdoings by ushering us into the lake of fire. He finds no joy in punishing our evil.

As far as I can tell, the Bible does not give us a picture of God like we have described.  Instead, the Bible shows us the God of the universe, loving and forgiving, longing to be in a relationship with each of us.  If you are like me, you will know how much we need God in our lives and inside us, to guide and direct our paths.  When we do go astray, it's still our loving God who longs for our restoration.   All that love, for us.  And the way we can show God's love for us, is in the way we show love toward others.

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