I want to share something with you, my readers and friends, in order to be fully honest with you,
and so you will know where I stand.
I have been asked what my view is on universalism and have been asked if I am now leaning towards that, and how I came to the place I'm at right now. So this post is to hopefully answer that question:
Over the course of the last year,
in going through some really hard times in my family with sickness, hospitalization, and the loss of my beloved and special grandmother, I have come through some deep
experiences with God and just experienced His presence in such a
powerful way, and experiencing the eternal reality in a vivid and
life-altering way, it is like God just impressed upon me very strongly
that everything is okay deep down in the ultimate sense and that
everything will be okay in the eternal sense, for me, for my family, for
everyone. Having this experience of God and of spiritual reality,
almost like experiencing a taste of heaven and seeing how the heavenly
realm and really God Himself just underlies and holds up all things in
the universe, and that since He is perfect and pure love, love is behind
and beneath the surface of everything, it just grounded me in a deep
way and brought a rest to me, a deep sense of knowing that all is well
and all will be well, for everyone..that it's all going to work out okay
for everyone in the end..I now don't think anyone will be in hell
eternally but that all will end up in heaven eternally.
I know that
many consider this heresy and I did for many years, too! But this is
where I am on my journey. I don't take my change in beliefs lightly, in
fact I struggled with such ideas for quite a while and was afraid to
believe such things, afraid God would be angry with me, eventually hoping this was so but afraid it wasn't true, then relieved when God assured me it IS true!
Now my experience is a personal one, not something that could be
scientifically verified, not something that necessarily will hold water
with other people..but it is real for me, it is true in my life, it has
brought me such peace and relief. It has brought an end, finally, to the searching
and seeking I've been through all my Christian life, searching for a
place of real REST in the arms of God, searching for a way to be able to
really, really, TRUST Him ...I have found that through experiencing Him
so deeply in that troubling time of family crisis.
Before, I wasn't able to fully, completely trust Him, because there was a hesitance in my mind, a fear of someone who would allow some to suffer in hell in eternal torment..it was like there was a dark side to this 'god' that would do such a thing, and I couldn't fully relax, rest in Him, or trust Him because He didn't feel completely, totally 'safe.' Even after coming to understand Grace, which took away many fears and helped me see Him as love, there was still something struggling to rest completely and fully. There was somehow still a hidden fear of wrath, a fear He might turn on me...for God seemed willing to reject some and allow them to suffer eternal torment in a place he made called hell...hell remained in my belief system, and as long as it was there, so was my fear! This was truly the cause of my problems with distrust, with my fear of God, with my inability to rest, with my endless seeking for relief from some undiagnosed angst, but I didn't know it was the cause or root of these problems until God impressed upon me the depth and scope of His grace and love and His assurance that 'all will be well' for all people! And then I immediately began to rest, to trust, to relax in Him! The weight of that hidden, nameless, deep fear fell off! It's so
wonderful because now I can really believe Him to be all LOVE, because I
know He won't leave anyone out in the cold, He will bring all the
people He made, all humanity, for we are all His offspring, home to Him
in the end!
Everything will be okay, for me and for all people..He will get us home no matter what..it isn't up to us but up to Him..therefore we are truly safe, all of us! He's got the whole world in His hands and we can't fall out, there is not even a place to fall out to, for all of the universe is IN Him, there is no OUT! What a relief! Hell dissolves, it never was real, the hell was in our minds as we were only separated from Him in our minds - in other words, we thought we were separated, but it was an illusion, a lie! We never were separated! All of creation exists by Him, through Him, in Him. For from Him, and through Him and to Him are ALL things! Unto Him ALL flesh shall come! Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world, and He completed the work the Father gave Him to do! He reconciled all things to Himself, and all flesh shall see it together, the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, all nations will come to Him, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord, for He is the spirit in man, He is pleased to reveal Christ IN us, and the spirit RETURNS to God who gave it!
I don't know how, don't have a clue what some Bible verses
mean, don't have it all worked out in my mind, I just know that I know
that all will be well for everybody and that grace means something so
much deeper than I ever imagined, it really means He will bless us, keep
us, love us, save us, no matter what, all of us, bring every last
little lamb home no matter what! Jesus came to seek and to save the
lost (for we were lost in our thoughts of loneliness and fear, confused by lies of separation and abandonment) and now I see He truly accomplished His mission and will bring
every person home, and that was never in doubt!
There is so much I
don't understand, but this is where I am at right now and where I feel
God Himself led me. It is just my personal experience and I am not
asking or demanding that anyone else believe this, not trying to push my
ideas on anyone, I hope! I respect anyone else's belief and I have
definitely believed other things for most of my life! But this is where
I feel God has brought me. I have been relieved and encouraged to find
that there are evangelical Christians who believe that all will one day
end up in heaven. This has encouraged me. But it wasn't through
reading books of others that I came to believe this, but simply through a
deep experience of God as pure love and grace in time of crisis. I
will never be the same. It was like a near death experience, coming at
the same time as a dear family member was passing into heaven. I look
back on that time now and in my memory, it is just flooded with the
light and warmth of heaven. I can't explain it! But anyway, that is
where I am at and I feel I need to be honest and share that.
