In “Choosing Life,” I told you that I was an only child.   When I married George, I got a whole new family.  Instantly I had a mom and two sisters-in-law and a brother-in-law.   My brother-in-law’s wife was my third sister-in-law.  I’ll call her Madge.  Madge was a fourth generation Californian, and a feisty one at that.  If there was one thing that Madge had, it was opinions.  And she held them strongly.  Most of her opinions revolved around the sad state of the world, specifically California, which was the only world that really mattered.  Madge told me that when she got to Heaven, she was going to demand that God tell her why He didn’t clean up all this mess down here.   This idea left me speechless.  That was not my plan.  My plan was to fall on my face before Him and thank Him for his mercy.   You know those times when the right thing to say finally comes to mind days later.  Well, days later I realized what I should have said: “It’s not His mess.”

Besides, God did clean up this mess down here once, with the flood.  And we all know how that turned out.   One family was spared.  One family.  And they did not even wait for the next generation to mess up.  So, basically, as long as there are human beings, there is going to be a mess.  God did not make little robots.  He made us with free will so that we can choose His way or our way.  He gave us guidelines to make our lives easier.  We like to pick and choose which ones we agree with and which ones are too much trouble.  We all want to be our own boss, and, if the truth be told, everyone else’s boss as well.  Enter the mess.

God looks at the big picture much differently than we do.   We look at the whole mess, and we are overwhelmed.  God looks at one heart at a time.   He cleans up one heart at a time.   I can’t begin to imagine His patience as the mess we make continues to grow.  But God is patient and kind and loving, looking for the next heart to turn to Him.  Every one of us has a choice to make.   His way or our way.  Clean or messy.  To me, there is only one choice that makes sense.  He is the only game in town worth playing.