Mercy does not Equal Foresight

“I screwed up my own love.” She said, sitting across from me.

“And how’s that?” I asked, looking thoughtfully at her.

“Well, first I fell in love. And then I got close and let that person in. And then I…I did what I always do.”

She left me hanging, so I prodded for an explanation.

“I got attached. I got attached and clung to it—our love.”

“And then what?”

“I apologized months down the road for all kinds of things that I didn’t even know I was talking about. Things I didn’t even do. I didn’t mean to apologize for it all, but she took it that way. Now I’m the supposed offender of all the drama. My own lover hates me for a bunch of lies! And here I am suffering because I can’t say that I’m innocent, but I’ve not done the wrong she now thinks I’ve done. It’s a catch-22. I wasn’t who I should’ve been. I wasn’t stand-up. I sucked, I did wrong…I just didn’t do that wrong. But there’s no way to convince her of that, now.”

I thought for just a second, but the thought came down to me quickly, “Maybe she will discover on her own, from what she knows of you, and thinking through the possibility of things, that all those things are lies. Maybe she will discover your innocence on her own. And, in that case, you will need to let her do that by herself. You won’t be able to convince her of it.”

“And what about the wrong I have done?”

“Well, that will need to be confessed and worked through at the time she is willing to hear you out.”

“…And I’ll lose her again…” her head hung and she clutched her forehead with her hands. “Maybe I should just let her go. It would be so much easier.”

“Easier, sure. But easier doesn’t mean good. You know in your heart that all of this is drama meant to pull you apart. You know in your heart that both of you were destined for love together. You know all these things in your heart.”

“And what about the ways I messed up?”

I laughed, “Well, at least concerning your misplaced apology, maybe it was just right. Maybe it had to happen that way for her to know that you suffered, too. You are human and have fears and mess up, too. She doesn’t get to be the only imperfect one. Of course, this gives neither of you any kind of excuse, and you have done wrong, but it is a forgiveable wrong, and you have long since quit it. Change is the best healing. Change is the best apology. Change is the best grace. It shows effort and love and strength. You’ve come this far. Do not let fear stop or hinder you again as it did the day you apologized. You know all these things in your heart to be true.”

She nodded and sniffled as she laughed away some tears. “I do know it, but it matters not what I know and rather what she knows. It matters how she feels, how she sees it. I, as the offender, do not matter in this circumstance.”

“Then you see her value, and she carries importance to you. And now you will give her time to sort things out.”

“I do not have forever. These human matters are mortal and will pass away with us. I want time with her. Time cannot be had in the other realms.”

“You will have time here. And, dear, time is a concept of a limitation. In the spiritual ‘other-realms’ it is simply that there is no limitation and so no need to describe it, this is why it is called ‘timeless’ because there is no limit of time. You will have all the time in heaven; so much of it that you won’t need to count the years or days or seconds. You will simply exist. And you will have time with her, dear. The angels have strung you together.

“Life simply sucks, it makes things hard. Even heavenly things struggle in the form of physical beings. The demons fight your love, my dear, but the heavens will guide you in all the ways through which everything must happen.”

“And what about the mistakes heaven let me make? It does not feel like heaven is on my side when it does not prepare me and seems to slip me in the biggest moments.”

“The biggest moments are not what you think they are. In your mind, your mistakes—each of them—had some greater bearing than your successes and right actions. But the times you made mistakes were only just as important as the times you did not. Mistakes might change the course of things, they might destroy things, but, in the moment they are made, that second in time is no different than the one before it. Certain situations might be sensitive, and certain actions can certainly destroy that, but dear, you must realize that the heavens have planned your course out just right that you might have slim misses and trip ups, but you must realize, this is the only way through. And because the war between worlds that our physical beings are caught between, nothing can be unblemished or unscathed. This is a test of your love. The world will test anything it has power to. It will fight this love, just as it fights any good thing. But the angels are handling the near-misses. The heavens have already mapped your course. God himself sees you and, although he does not prevent everything from affecting this love (he must let you be human), he is indeed controlling more of this than you think—more of it than you can see right now.

“You’ve said it yourself: ‘humans could not have accomplished this love on their own. there is no way [you both] would have gotten this far in it on [your] own.’ You were right in saying that because the Lord’s grace has covered your humanity, he has even already supernaturally guided this love with extreme weight and power that you could not imagine or attain. So, let God be God, let him know what he knows, and let that be enough. He will sort through all this drama as he sees rightful to this love. He will strengthen this love beyond your understanding. And that is why it is a miracle. That is why it is grace; mercy. This love goes beyond you, dear. It goes beyond her or humanity. This is a love that God made, he created this! It is barely yours aside of the fact that he assigned the love to you, and it is barely hers except that he assigned it to her. Your two souls were sewn together in heaven before any worldliness or physical hands could touch it. And, dear, Heavenly sinews do not break. The fabric of your beings might stretch (as the course of every human life does), but it will not break, for this is the Lord’s will. Fear not! It is not in your hands. Do you think that as a human you have such power to break such a beautiful and heavenly thing? No, you cannot. You do not have the power of God nor of the heavens. So rest, young dear. This will happen in the Lord’s timing and, when it does, it will be beyond your capability of understanding or comprehension or ability. It will be miraculous and will definitely show the hand of God within it. For this is a supernatural love. And it takes part and resides halvely in your two souls—half in her and half in you. And God does not leave things partial. No, he completes his business. He finishes his intentional creations. And you and her and this love is one of them.”

She nodded, finally, and furrowed her brow, deep in thought. “And what if this is only what we as humans believe (for even you are human) and we fool ourselves with all this talk?”

“Then it is a matter for God to handle, nonetheless. He will bring you to the end of whatever course he has written out. Nothing can be—nothing can happen—without his will. Nothing will alter your course aside of what is contained in his pre-written will. And this has been established since before the beginning of time. It is very sure, and so is He.”

“So nothing is guaranteed.”

“How am I to know the mind of God? But I see his hand in this just as you have. All you can do is let God know everything because you can’t, and walk the paths he takes you through.”

“This has given me no assurance.”

“It has given you no knowledge. This is why you say it has given you no assurance. But you need not knowledge of the things which it is God’s job to pull together. You do not need to be a fortune teller for all these things to happen. Your foresight does not alter God’s plan. Whatever you would see or know would happen despite you seeing it or knowing it. In our physical beings, knowledge is assurance, but this is why we are so feeble! We must instead rest in the Lord and let him be the one who knows (for he is the one who knows), we must not fret over these things, because it is not ours to fret, it is God’s.

“Anxiety is from the devil. The need to know stems from anxiety. We are beings who must prepare many things in our lives. We make plans, we try to guess the future to prevent or cause things to happen. But playing with time is not within our capability. In doing so, we attempt to take the reins from God. And how does this serve us? His will cannot be moved outside of him, and neither can anything else. It only gives us great anxiety to attempt to be God or know what only God can know. If we left it to him and chose peace within ourselves because we can know that God knows all and controls all these paths of our lives, we would not fret and our brows would not furrow in worry as yours does. Let God be God.”

“I wanted hope from this. I wanted to know if I am a fool or not. I want to know whether I should forget it and drop what hope I do have or not.”

“And if you did know, would it change anything you did? No. because you are human. You have this false sense of power and ability that you do not have. ‘I could change it!’ you would say, and, indeed, you would not be able to change it. You want what you want. You intend only to see if God’s will aligns with your plan for yourself. But you have no such power to change it even if it doesn’t. If even God himself transcended from heaven in this exact moment and looked you in the face (if you could see his heavenly face) and told you with his thunderous voice, ‘Daughter, you are being a fool. Forget about this whole thing. This love is a dream you dreamt up and it is not going to happen.’ You still would take the reins (or attempt to) and “show” God that you can make it happen. Dear, you do not want to know so you could change. You want to make sure God is doing it right according to your desire. You are stubborn as humans are. The flesh is not willing to bend to God’s will or surrender to his grace or bow at his mercy. But this is why God did not make us entirely fleshen as he made the animals, we have spirits within us, and this spirit is our inner will, the core of our beings, and this we can consciously choose to align with him. But that is a choice we must make, it is a choice he gave us free will to make.

“You are not an animal that you have only the capability of acting upon instinct. You are a human being with conscious thought. And this God bestowed upon you when he placed humankind above the animals. This is what separates you from being entirely flesh. As the apostles said, ‘you are a little below the angels’. The angels are a little below the Son of God, who is a little below God himself. God the Father is the planner and voice of work, God the Son is his mercy embodied, and the Spirit is is very will and essence. This is why he bestows upon believers (who accept his mercy) his holy spirit, that our will would be guided and affected by his own.

“But, my dear, you are still physical. You are still within this physical world which means that you are limited. You do not have the sight of the spirits, not without the confusion of your human sight, that is. Your sight is fallible! Only God is not fallible.”

She thought about these things deeply. And then I realized that she, my doubt embodied, got up and walked out of the room of my mind. For God casts out fear; his love, his mercy, his peace does (and this is what his presence affords). And when I brought him into the room, she left. Fear left, and the assurance of his peace and capability and all-powerful hand washed over me. So I war with myself, but these wars are nothing I cannot handle or win with the Lord at my side and his truth in my heart and his word in my mouth and his mercy within me.