Of Mile Markers and Satan (part 2)

Note: This is part 2 of a continued story. If you didn’t read part 1, you are welcomed to read it here to understand the full story.

Whatever I was bracing for, I know I was not prepared for what I heard. I simply was not expecting this from my seven year old.

Jefferson turned from his window and, looking at me very seriously, said, "Daddy, since God is stronger than anyone and he can do anything he wants to, why doesn't he just kill Satan?"

The question caught me off guard. What was I supposed to say? What had I gotten myself into? He’s seven! This is a question with which theologians ten times his age wrestle. Was I even solid enough in what I believed to articulate an answer? Especially one fitting his age?

Then I saw an out. Hey! Maybe I’d just tell Jefferson this is one of those questions that the answer would be too heavy for him. I’d just write it down and answer in a few years when he’s ready. That would buy me some time.

But down inside I knew I needed to answer. His question was a legitimate one. After all, if a child rightfully believes God is all-powerful, perfectly wise, loves people, and hates evil, the obvious question is: "Well, then, so why doesn't God just finish off Satan once and for all!"

I took a deep breath and I stalled for time by assuring Jefferson that his question was a good one. I did tell him that it was a hard one and that I’d do my best to answer him even though I wasn’t sure that even I understood the answer totally.

Because not only was this a notorious "why" question, but it was also a "God" question. And even an especially hard God question, because the Bible does not give us this answer exactly spelled out word for word. Rather it’s an answer that we have to get by reading between the lines, connecting truths with other truths which are given to us clearly in the Bible.

Jefferson nodded and I could tell that he was glad I was at least going to try to answer. Because I think he truly did want to know... after all, killing Satan should be simple for God and it would solve so many problems, right?

Please don’t laugh at me here, because it does seem sort of bizarre to me now as I write this 13 years later. But I’m telling a true story so I need to stick with the true account. But anyway... I started my explanation to Jefferson explaining about love. Love between a man and a woman.

And, yes, I told him that some of this he will not fully understand until he’s older, but I trusted that he’d understand at least a little of it now.

I explained to him that all of us have a need to know that we are wanted. We need to know that those who are special to us also think that we are special. He understood even as a child that it feels very bad to feel unwanted on the playground, etc.

Of course, I used his mother Dawn and I as examples as his parents.

I asked him if he knew that when I first had interest in Dawn as a girl and wanted her to be my girlfriend, that it was special to "Mommy" (as he called her then) that I had picked her out from all the other girls and chose her special to be the one that I wanted for my girlfriend. Above all the other girls, I wanted her.

Jefferson nodded shyly and gave me a crooked grin. It’s amazing how this subject, even at that age, was a little outside his comfort zone.

I further asked him if he understood that even though I had picked his “Mommy" out of all the other girls as the one I liked best and wanted most... that she did not have to say yes to my suggestion that we be special boyfriend and girlfriend. She could have said no. She could have decided that she liked some other boy better.

But she did say yes... so in that way she also chose me out from those other boys that she could have had.

So to mommy, it was knowing that I chose her, picked her out and wanted her that made her feel special. For me it was knowing that mommy chose me.

If, in some way, neither of us would have had a choice, we would never have really know if the other really loved or, if... "Well, since there’s no option... sure... I guess, I’ll just have to put up with you."

Again Jefferson nodded and kept paying attention so I figured he was getting at least some of it. So I continued, this time drawing him into an imaginative scenario.

I said, ok now, since you understand that it’s the choice for the other that makes Daddy and Mommy’s love special, we are going to need to imagine just a bit to get to your real question.

Imagine if I was an extremely powerful man, stronger than all other men, and I could make anything happen that I wanted... imagine if I could kill all other men in the world if I wanted to. And what if I wanted Mommy to be my wife, but I knew some other men wanted her too. So what if I used my power to kill all those other men so that Mommy had no choice but to be my wife? Even if she did not want to and really did not love me but she had no choice... because there were no other men... I had just killed them all? Then what?

What if I had these powers, but really, more than anything else in the world, what if what I really wanted was to know that I was wanted. I wanted to know that I was loved. What if above all else I wanted to know that I was chosen? That I was admired? That Mommy thought I was more special than all the other men and chose to be with me always?

How would I even know or feel any of these things if Mommy did not have a choice? If I had just killed all the other men and I was her only option and maybe I’d even force her to marry me... be my slave?

Do you see, Jefferson, I asked, how if God were to use his great big power to just kill Satan–and he could–do you see that by doing that so that we, the people he loves, would have no other choice except him... do you see how that would take away God’s pleasure of knowing that he is wanted, the joy of knowing he is admired, that he is even worshiped?

Does that make sense to you?

God does not just want a lot of beings and people who must love him and have no choice but to serve him. He has that in the birds and the plants and the animals.

But what he really wants most is people who chose to love him. People who could say no but instead they say yes!

So do you see now why God, since he wants willing love and to know he’s chosen, and that he’s wanted... does it make sense to you now why maybe it is that God decides to allow an enemy to live?

Intentionally allowing the option of no, is the only way God can experience the delight of being willingly chosen.

Even though this was heady stuff and for sure a good bit more than Jefferson expected when he asked this question, to his credit, he stayed with me and I could tell he comprehended it at least in a measure. I apologized to him for the big words and hard concepts of the explanation and assured him that it would make more sense to him when he grows up.

Apparently some of it did stick and make an impression, because the now-20-year-old Jefferson and I talked about this just today as I wrote. And he confirmed that yes, he remembers the discussion, though he says he forgot that I used mile markers as an illustration of "why" questions! HA!

I guess that is exactly what we teachers like to tell our audience. "Now forget the illustration, but please remember the lesson."

It seems like that's what Jefferson did... because just as recently as last week he and a young lady from our church, both with free choice of their own, have picked each other out of the crowd and decided between themselves to be special friends and to begin a courtship.

So now he is, in a personal way, beginning to understand the "why" behind "the pleasure of the chosen!"

And I’m sure he understands the “why” of his God question in a new way also.

Forced love is not love. Only chosen love is.

Blessings until next time!

Your Mennonite Christian farmer friend,

Edwin Shank

"Intensely striving to be... A follower of Jesus indeed... In whom there is no guile"

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