Jesus and Rubio's.

Today is a good day. I stopped by Rubio’s for lunch, which I only do when I have had a refreshingly good day. It’s literally the perfect combination: Two fish tacos with a few drops of lime, chips, beans, and to top it off the perfect clash of Vanilla and Coca-Cola. Something about Vanilla Coke just does it for me on days like this and I really don’t know why. I sat there toward the end of my meal and looked outside and I swear everything in the world looked better through that window at Rubio’s.
I’ve really struggled over my salvation recently, whether or not I could lose it or whether or not I’d find it. To be fair I never disbelieved Jesus but have had difficulty coming to terms with hell. I mean seriously? Eternity? At least send someone there to whip them into shape when they die so God could say “Now get your butt into heaven, you don’t want to go back!” So I guess this is what I see as a fitting choice when I play god, which is what gets me into trouble in the first place.
But today...
And I guess yesterday...
I’ve changed on that quite a bit.
I sat there, looking through that window at Rubio’s and wondered, “What if we had just existed in Paradise? I mean just skip the whole Earth stage completely?” This question is not as much a “Why didn’t You?” but more so just a thought.
It occurred to me that our names are written in the Lambs Book of Life. We have been written in there from the get go according to the Bible. I read a lot yesterday from a book about eternal security. I believe God will let everyone who trusts that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life into His heaven, even if they lost faith during life. To say anything less takes away from the greatness and the goodness of the news we speak of and allows for us to cast others into hell with our minds. Is that short of loving others? I’d say so. So one thing I find beautiful is that he has us already taken care of, we are safe. Nothing could ever snatch us out of His hand! Good news!
But when I thought of evil in our world I thought about stories and how we are all in love with movies and stories where good overcomes evil, where there is restoration. Is that how the human heart works? Are we wired to love that?
The Lambs Book of Life quite possibly became more beautiful than anything else in that moment. Far from being simply a list of survivors, could this be the greatest story ever told? We who have been redeemed by Christ, how joyful would it be to read the story of the universe where you played a role in the writing of the Lambs Book of Life? Maybe someday we will all sit down and be able to read the Lambs Book of Life where we can read about all of our friends who played a role in God’s story and we can say, “I know them!” with moistened eyes as we realize the beauty of God’s redemption. We can skim through to our story and realize that God let us play a role in the greatest story ever told and how He used that pain we felt for something beautiful.
When I thought about that, I didn’t want to worry about evil anymore. I didn’t have to doubt God.
Instead of paradise He had another plan. I like to trust that His plan is better than mine.
He is I AM.