Figure it Out

to be continued…

- “Do you want to believe in a god who shows His power by punishing non-Christians and who magnifies His mercy by blessing Christians forever?”

The author states “of course not”. We don’t want people we love and care about to go to Hell because they can’t see God’s power. He states it would make more sense for him to punish ‘wicked people’ because it doesn’t sound fair to send good people to the eternity of Hell. It’s also sad that if you ‘chose the wrong religion’ you’re out of luck. The author states that good people should be given the chance to see Jesus with their own eyes at the gate because many of those good people were in false belief on Earth, but if shown the truth, they can change their fate.

- “Does the Bible say that everyone will be saved in the end?”

 Universalism (from AD 185-254) believers believed everyone indeed was going to saved in the end stating that ‘God will melt every hard heart, and even the most depraved sinners will give up their resistance’ and state that the Bible clearly describes that result. Non-Christian Universalists (known as Pluralists) believe that ‘all religions present equally valid ways of salvation’. The less cautious Christian Universalists call themselves ‘dogmatic Universalists’. Hopeful and dogmatic Christian Universalists believe people will have another chance (or many chances) after death to believe in Jesus and be saved.

- “Does anything in the Bible support the idea that God will end up saving everyone?”

• In Philippians 2:9-11, Paul says: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the time of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (which means that there will come a day when Christ returns to reclaim His creation, and everyone will acknowledge this. King Jesus will reign, and none will be able to deny it.
• Philippians 1:28, Paul says that those who oppose the gospel will face “destruction,” while those who embrace it will be saved.
• Philippians 3:19, Paul refers to the enemies of Christ whose “end is destructive,” while followers of Jesus look forward to resurrection and glory (3:20-21).
• Paul is referring to the Old Testament book of Isaiah where Isaiah is referring to God’s salvation, which is witnessed among the nations and embraced by some but not all.
• (1 Cor. 15:22) For as in Adam all die, so also Christ shall all be made alive.
• (2 Cor. 5:19) In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
• (Col. 1:19-20) In him all fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
• (1 Tim 2:4) [God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
• In 1 Cor. 15:22, Paul says, “In Christ all will be made alive.” The author states that when Paul says “all will be made alive,” he’s clearly thinking about the resurrection of believers at the second coming of Christ.
• 1 Cor. 16:22 Paul finishes his statement by forcing the warning that everyone who does not love Jesus will be “damned”. So in this case, “all” does not mean every single person.
• 1 Timothy 2:4 states God wants all people to be saved. God is God so shouldn’t he just do whatever he wants and get whatever he desires? Yes, but God gave us humans the choice of free will to make our own decisions. My concern, is that these are constant tests he’s always running, as if it’s a game or entertaining. Girlfriends testing their boyfriends instead of just communicating honestly with them because then lessons would be learned quicker. It confuses me, but then I remember this is Earth and that he placed us here to make decisions in able to prepare us to decide what we wanted out fate to be. I do not know much, so it is too early to make any assumptions.

One line that the author said that I really enjoyed read: ” God is not a puppet master who pulls everyone’s strings to suit His will,” (hint “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”).

- “Who left the gate open?”

• Relevation 21 the “lake of fire” is used to describe the final destiny of those who don’t follow Jesus in this life. “Lake of fire” is for punishment not for purity.
• Relevation 22:14-15 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” This states that there is a clear separation between believers and unbelievers.
• The New Testament suggests a lot that everyone will be saved. Not sure if that means the ones in the lake of fire and “wash their robes” and then enter the gates of Heaven.

- “What about those passages that say there wil be a second chance?”

• “The love of God will melt every heart, and even the most ‘depraved sinners’ whom will then eventually all turn to God.”
• Luke 13:22-30 states that Jesus answered by saying “few will be saved, but even worse, many who think they are saved will end up on the outside of the kingdom”.
• With that note, Jesus is known as an actual historical figure. There was a man by the name of Jesus whom called himself the son of God. What interferes my thoughts with trusting that the Bible was written by men whom heard from God what to write, is that this cannot be proven because there is a difference between the spiritual world and that actual world. My journey continues to try making sense of the Bible. Hopefully I don’t give up….again.
• Luke 13:25-28 “When once the master of the house has risen and shit the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer to you, ‘I do not know when you come from…..Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Issac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves case out.” This says nothing about a second chance. It bothers me that God would turn away good people that just never felt the spirit and call them ‘workers of evil’. I hope this verse is aimed for those who were actual workers of evil. I can only hope that good people are given a second chance after finally seeing God.

Why can’t I get over the regret. Adam and I didn’t notice the warning signs when they first started.

Our cat of 6yrs was pretty fat and lazy, but one of the most affectionate cats in existence. He would paw my back, he was very vocal, loved sleeping in the sun, loved to get under the cover and sleep like a human, he is an amazing spirit.

He had gingivitis when I had first gotten him and was told by the vets that cats live all their lives with it and it shouldn’t kill him. We’ve always had issues with his health because of his weak immune system, like dry paws, runny nose, deathly bad breath, etc. We got a new lively orange cat, last year, named Nacho to spice things up. Buddha started losing weight hardcore but we were convinced that is was because Nacho was constantly chasing him. Buddha even had a situation where he wounded his foot when a piece of dry skin got ripped off by the carpet. It took a month, constant care and attention, four vet visits, and hundreds of dollars for it to heal (because the things the vets were telling us to do were fails).

Anyways, Buddha pees standing up instead of squatting, and had an event where he peed outside of the litter box door. It didn’t smell, and Adam and I were so relieved it didn’t stink, we didn’t think twice about it. Months passed and we had moved into a new house. We started noticing that he was rubbing his mouth with his paws as if it was unbelievably itchy. He stopped eating, so we took him to the vet and they gave us food specifically for pets that aren’t eating. He ate it for a day or two then stopped, so we started mixing tuna juice in it. It was a horrible feeling to have every effort fail. He stopped sleeping with us, which we thought was because we were in a new house and he could have the whole upstairs to himself. Later, we find out that pets distance themselves from civilization when they are dieing. We seemed to have made a excuse for everything that was weird. He was still just as lovable and vocal as he always had been.

One night, I was working in the upstairs office and Buddha approached us as vocal as usual to rub him. He was having trouble jumping onto the bed and we noticed he was dragging his back legs. We immediately thought it was the wooded slick floors, but he was sliding to easily for it to be just that. We rushed him to the emergency room and had to apply for a credit card to cover $800 worth of tests and his night stay. They took every kind of test you could imagine, and we were told he was not dehydrated enough to have caused his dizziness and weakness. The x-rays showed that his kidneys were failing and had been failing for the previous few months. They stated that there was not much that could be done that hadn’t been down already. We had waited too long.

Why can’t I get over the regret. Adam and I didn’t notice the warning signs when they first started.

Our cat of 6yrs was pretty fat and lazy, but one of the most affectionate cats in existence. He would lay and paw my back, he was very vocal, loved to get under the cover and sleep like a human, he was an amazing spirit.

He had gingivitis when I had first gotten him and was told by the vets that cats live all their lives with it and it shouldn’t kill him. We’ve always had issues with his health because of his weak immune system, like dry paws, runny nose, deathly bad breath, etc. We got a new lively orange cat, last year, named Nacho to spice things up. Buddha started losing weight hardcore but we were convinced that is was because Nacho was constantly chasing him. Buddha even had a situation where he wounded his foot when a piece of dry skin got ripped off by the carpet. It took a month, constant care and attention, four vet visits, and hundreds of dollars for it to heal (because the things the vets were telling us to do were fails).

Anyways, Buddha pees standing up instead of squatting, and had an event where he peed outside of the litter box door. It didn’t smell, and Adam and I were so relieved it didn’t stink, we didn’t think twice about it. Months passed and we had moved into a new house. We started noticing that he was rubbing his mouth with his paws as if it was unbelievably itchy. He stopped eating, so we took him to the vet and they gave us food specifically for pets that aren’t eating. He ate it for a day or two then stopped, so we started mixing tuna juice in it. It was a horrible feeling to have every effort fail. He stopped sleeping with us, which we thought was because we were in a new house and he could have the whole upstairs to himself. Later, we find out that pets distance themselves from civilization when they are dieing. We seemed to have made a excuse for everything that was weird. He was still just as lovable and vocal as he always had been.

One night, I was working in the upstairs office and Buddha approached us as vocal as usual to rub him. He was having trouble jumping onto the bed and we noticed he was dragging his back legs. We immediately thought it was the wooded slick floors, but he was sliding to easily for it to be just that. We rushed him to the emergency room and had to apply for a credit card to cover $800 worth of tests and his night stay. They took every kind of test you could imagine, and we were told he was not dehydrated enough to have caused his dizziness and weakness. The x-rays showed that his kidneys were failing and had been failing for the previous few months. They stated that there was not much that could be done that hadn’t been down already. We had waited too long.

When we told the vet our reasoning for all of the events, they stated that pets are very good at hiding their pain and that since he was still his usual personality, they could understand how we would have not known any better. When I picked him up the next morning, his eyes were running side to side as if the room was spinning. I immediately freaked out and was trying to drive sobbing to his regular vet as I was told that they would continue giving him the i.v. there, with hopes that his kidneys would react. He was meowing differently as if he was confused and just wanted to go home. When I got into the vet office, I was told to wait and when I sat down, I cried so loud that one of the nurses to us to a room. I knew that there was probably nothing we could do, and three months of effort and lack of knowledge was all kicking in at one time. How could I have not tried harder? I could not accept that I would not hear his meow anymore. The doctor came in after viewing over all of the test results and explained to me that I would have to pay for three nights stay of constant supervision and i.v. and that alone would be over $400, and that afterwards, if the i.v. didn’t work on his kidneys (we were told it was not likely that the i.v. would help enough), I’d have to give him medications and dialysis for the rest of his life. I called Adam which he was at school and told him that we might need to make a decision because the doctors are telling us that it doesn’t look good, and we could not get the money quick enough. I can tell how much I’ve tried to not think about the details because I can barely type this. So, Adam drove from school and got to the vet office 45 minutes later after that call. Three hours later, after agreeing and disagreeing back and forth, we knew that we would be selfish to not put Buddha to rest. I still can’t tell if I regret not trying that last push more than I regret putting him down. The vets kept telling us that we’d be taking a big risk financially because it was obvious that it was too late. We wanted to take him home and wrap him up while he enjoyed the outside. The vets said that we would be letting him suffer if we waited for him to pass. During the three hours, Buddha was constantly trying to stand up and walk and he was so weak and scared and confused, that our decision became more clear each time we saw him struggle. He finally layed down and looked like he was going to go to sleep (we think this might have been his last hour). The doctor came in and asked if I wanted to hold him while she did it. She stated that he might have a bowl movement and twitch, and I could not imagine him going limp in my arms so we agreed that it was best that we just watch. As she started to put the needle into his i.v., I was rubbing Buddhas head and trying to smile as if he could understand that everything was okay. Within seconds, his eyes dilated and his neck relaxed. I never thought it was be this hard to talk about it. I had no idea that a pet’s death was as strong as a human’s death. It took a good 20 minutes to let them take him out of the room. I had to turn around because I could not handle watching the limpness of his body.We agreed to get him cremated, so we were told that the cremation organization would contact us when his ashes were ready. We went home and Nacho immediately was looking around for Buddha. I still think about where he’d be laying down or what sound he would meow about. I think about him everyday and cannot believe the hole that was left. For a whole month after, I didn’t want to watch tv or listen to music, or even see any of my friends of family. Life is full of blessings and I have to keep reminding myself that I cannot press rewind, I can only press play. Mistakes are the beginning of knowledge and regret is a waste of time but hard to defeat.

He is resting in peace.