Consider Yourself Warned

 Lately, it has been my habit to lay awake late at night letting my mind run on overhaul. It kills any hope of early bird rising, but it's also a time where my mind can work in the quiet. I've had a lot of extremely weighty issues I've been grappling with. I usually jot them down so I don't forget it.
On a seemingly unrelated note, I've realized I'm been really bad about updating my blog.
The solution?
I'm now going to be jotting down my late night thoughts here for your consideration/commendation/comdemnation. I know I run the risk of actually exposing how much of a freak I am to the general public, but I take consolation in the fact that all the freakiness is Jesus Freakiness.

My thought for the night:

I've always been intrigued by things extra-terrestrial. Here, by extra-terrestrial, I don't mean I'm obbsessed with aliens or sci-fi novels. I mean I'm intrigued by things that are not of this earth. Specifically, what it was like before the creation of the world, and what the end of the world and beyond will be like. Revelation is one of my favorites books of the Bible, if that gives you any idea of what I mean.
People often wonder what hell is like. Is it dark? - Like a giant, floating, black void of pain? Or rather, is it like the commercially popular picture of an underground, stalactited, flaming pit?
I myself have reached the conclusion that it is complete separation from God. The Holy Spirit, His very presence, everything. That probably first strikes you as blasphemous. God is omnipresent. There is no place that God isn't.
I absolutely agree with God's omnipresence. I am in no way saying that there are places He can't control. I do wonder, however, if there is a place that He has purposefully removed Himself from.
To the unbeliver, what is it they want? Ultimately, they do not want God. Hell is giving them what they want - no God. I find it interesting to read about The Void (in the first couple verses of Genisis where God's spirit hovered over the Void - also referred to as waters or depths). I wonder if the Void was a place devoid (Ah ha) of God's presence, and He filled it with land, light, and life as He filled it with Himself.
While that was a little off topic, I brought up The Void to give you a mental picture of what I think hell is. It is worse to be alive and without God than to be dead.
And we will be alive. When we die, we get new bodies whether we go to heaven or hell. A friend of mine raised the objection that a human soul can not exist without God. It would literally cease to exsist. Again, this is all my musing and wondering - I wonder what the implications of a new body would be. Are the new bodies actual self-sustaining, eternal bodies? This would seem to be Biblical. The Bible says we will be constantly rejoicing and worshiping God in heaven - because we want to. We don't get reprogrammed to be robotic worshipers in heaven. We are very much free (free indeed!) and what we want to do with that freedom is love our amazing God.
So if those in hell have self-sustaining bodies - then that, my friends, is true torment. Living - being very much alive - completely without God. I believe one would be able to look back on his life and see all the times that God gave him a chance. All the times where the evidence was clear. All the times that he spit in God's face. And he was wrong, and it is too late.
That, my dear readers, is true hell.
Praise God for His amazing, undeserving, and matchless love and grace! I am so grateful that I will not have to face hell - whatever it might be like. I have a better place to look forward to, and I am - to put it lightly - stoked.
Challenge for the night: If you too feel this way, I would encourage you to make it plain in your life. I am also growing in this. We have a better place. This earth is nothing compared to our futures. As that is the case, we should live our lives solely for the One who we'll be with forever. Whatever we can do, whoever we can witness to - it's all living future-minded. If people think we're freaks, it's sweet, 'cause we want to be different. If they hate us and kill us, then we have the last, gloriously happy laugh, because we are in heaven. Praise God.

'Night all.