Clone of Love Never Ends
Illustration
Stories
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. (vv.8-10)
I, John Sumwalt, believe in God! It’s the reality in which, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “I live and move and have my being.”
I learned that at my mother’s knee, and from my farmer father as he milked cows and plowed the fields. Dad always had a sense of awe and thankfulness for all the Creator had given us.
The first verse in the Bible sums it up for me – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1
I learned that verse in Sunday school. I believed it because of what I learned at home. And I didn’t change my mind when I studied experimental psychology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
In my psychology classes I learned the scientific method – how to create carefully controlled experiments to prove what is true and what is not true. In one class the assignment was to train a rat using operant conditioning – reward and punishment. I hate rats. I hate rats even more than I hate snakes and the Chicago Bears. But I trained that white lab rat so well that he would stand on his hind legs and sing the “Star-Spangled Banner”. The problem was he would never do it when the professor was in the room.
I believe in the scientific method. I believe in God! The two are not incompatible.
I believe God is the source of everything that is and will ever be – all the cosmos that can be seen through the Hubble telescope as well as the new James Webb telescope that can show light from stars 13 billion-plus years ago when the universe began. I believe scientists and theologians and biblical scholars are interested in the same thing – what is undeniably true about all of existence.
My favorite theologian, Paul Tillich, believed God is “ultimate reality… the deepest and most fundamental nature of existence.” He suggested that God be understood as the “ground of Being-Itself.” He accepted Gustave Weigel’s observation that he had an “immediate awareness of God, so strong that argument was neither necessary nor possible.”
But Arthur C. Clarke – my favorite science-fiction writer whose best known for his novels 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood’s End, which is the best science fiction story I ever read – left written instructions that “Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral.”
Isaac Asimov, another celebrated 20th century science-fiction writer, said, “I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. … I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”
Will we see the likes of Clarke and Asimov in heaven? And what of other notable dead atheists, like the renowned astronomy professor Carl Sagan?
Carl Sagan famously wrote, “I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.”
Will we see them in heaven, those brilliant, faithless atheists?
You and I don’t have the right to judge. Who is to say what limits there are to God’s love and mercy? I believe the first verse I learned in Sunday School holds true for all created beings.
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” – 1 John 4:16b
I never learned anything more important in seminary, or in all of my 43-years of preaching the Gospel. God is love! Believer or atheist, Palestinian or Israeli, Jew or Muslim or Christian, Russian or Ukrainian, red stater or blue stater, pro-life or pro-choice, gay or straight or trans, illegal immigrant or native-born citizen – all those who “… abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
People who have had near-death experiences tell about the powerful love that enveloped them when they were in the presence of God. A woman from Great Britain shared on Facebook recently about a beautiful near-death experience she had more than 32 years ago, when she was just 25 years old.
“I had a stillborn son and due to complications of the pregnancy I developed septicemia and ended up on a ventilator,” she wrote. “I just remember waiting in a vast room, with endless rows of people. … We were all waiting to go into the ‘bright room’ when my mum walked out toward me. I couldn’t believe it was her because she died when I was ten, but she was so beautiful and smiling. She told me, ‘Sweetheart you need to go back.’ I was so confused because I wanted to go with her. She was smiling and suddenly I felt as though I was being cradled by my maker. I said to him, ‘I don’t want to go, but if you need me to I will.’ I was so peaceful and when I returned to my body, the only way I can describe it was like putting on an old, wet coat … I just knew my wee baby was ok with my Mum looking after him. … The afterlife is real; it is beautiful and it is waiting for us all.’ “
“There’s A Wideness in God’s Mercy,” a hymn written by Frederick William Faber in 1862, reflects what for this old farm kid is the boundless love of God that’s available to all.
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea …
But we make God’s love too narrow
by false limits of our own,
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal God will not own.
For the love of God is broader
than the measures of the mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
I, John Sumwalt, believe in God! It’s the reality in which, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “I live and move and have my being.”
I learned that at my mother’s knee, and from my farmer father as he milked cows and plowed the fields. Dad always had a sense of awe and thankfulness for all the Creator had given us.
The first verse in the Bible sums it up for me – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1
I learned that verse in Sunday school. I believed it because of what I learned at home. And I didn’t change my mind when I studied experimental psychology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
In my psychology classes I learned the scientific method – how to create carefully controlled experiments to prove what is true and what is not true. In one class the assignment was to train a rat using operant conditioning – reward and punishment. I hate rats. I hate rats even more than I hate snakes and the Chicago Bears. But I trained that white lab rat so well that he would stand on his hind legs and sing the “Star-Spangled Banner”. The problem was he would never do it when the professor was in the room.
I believe in the scientific method. I believe in God! The two are not incompatible.
I believe God is the source of everything that is and will ever be – all the cosmos that can be seen through the Hubble telescope as well as the new James Webb telescope that can show light from stars 13 billion-plus years ago when the universe began. I believe scientists and theologians and biblical scholars are interested in the same thing – what is undeniably true about all of existence.
My favorite theologian, Paul Tillich, believed God is “ultimate reality… the deepest and most fundamental nature of existence.” He suggested that God be understood as the “ground of Being-Itself.” He accepted Gustave Weigel’s observation that he had an “immediate awareness of God, so strong that argument was neither necessary nor possible.”
But Arthur C. Clarke – my favorite science-fiction writer whose best known for his novels 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood’s End, which is the best science fiction story I ever read – left written instructions that “Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral.”
Isaac Asimov, another celebrated 20th century science-fiction writer, said, “I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. … I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”
Will we see the likes of Clarke and Asimov in heaven? And what of other notable dead atheists, like the renowned astronomy professor Carl Sagan?
Carl Sagan famously wrote, “I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.”
Will we see them in heaven, those brilliant, faithless atheists?
You and I don’t have the right to judge. Who is to say what limits there are to God’s love and mercy? I believe the first verse I learned in Sunday School holds true for all created beings.
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” – 1 John 4:16b
I never learned anything more important in seminary, or in all of my 43-years of preaching the Gospel. God is love! Believer or atheist, Palestinian or Israeli, Jew or Muslim or Christian, Russian or Ukrainian, red stater or blue stater, pro-life or pro-choice, gay or straight or trans, illegal immigrant or native-born citizen – all those who “… abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
People who have had near-death experiences tell about the powerful love that enveloped them when they were in the presence of God. A woman from Great Britain shared on Facebook recently about a beautiful near-death experience she had more than 32 years ago, when she was just 25 years old.
“I had a stillborn son and due to complications of the pregnancy I developed septicemia and ended up on a ventilator,” she wrote. “I just remember waiting in a vast room, with endless rows of people. … We were all waiting to go into the ‘bright room’ when my mum walked out toward me. I couldn’t believe it was her because she died when I was ten, but she was so beautiful and smiling. She told me, ‘Sweetheart you need to go back.’ I was so confused because I wanted to go with her. She was smiling and suddenly I felt as though I was being cradled by my maker. I said to him, ‘I don’t want to go, but if you need me to I will.’ I was so peaceful and when I returned to my body, the only way I can describe it was like putting on an old, wet coat … I just knew my wee baby was ok with my Mum looking after him. … The afterlife is real; it is beautiful and it is waiting for us all.’ “
“There’s A Wideness in God’s Mercy,” a hymn written by Frederick William Faber in 1862, reflects what for this old farm kid is the boundless love of God that’s available to all.
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea …
But we make God’s love too narrow
by false limits of our own,
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal God will not own.
For the love of God is broader
than the measures of the mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
