The never-ending quest to reach, and negate God continues.

No one has negated God, or else God would cease to be an issue. Some jealously grasp for this objective and fail. The irony is that to negate God, one must negate self. Each of us is made in the image of God. Meaning?

The children. In them we see the closest to the image of God. "Of such is the kingdom of God." That was each of us, once. What happened?

The simplicity, innocence and purity of children is what we miss. We miss the image of God in us that brought so much love. Is that God's fault? To many, yes. How is that? God is at fault, but not the decision makers who lost the image by their own choices? Is this reasonable?

God gave the image in the first place: the capacity for immortal goodness and love. He has not taken that away from us. We have driven it away with false sophistication and neglect of loving truth.

Do we miss God? Not really, but we miss God in us. We want the blessings of God in our lives without God. We want the benefits but not the benefactor's supernature with and in us. We want the power of the Grace, but not the Grace with and in us. That's because it is easier to go for the power instead of the goodness and love of relationship.

No wonder some wish to kill the unborn. It is attempted revenge against God by taking His most innocent. They are closest to Him. Christ, who remained as a child at heart through adulthood, then gave Himself in response to the demand "Crucify Him." No arguments for his innocence. Just innocence silent before power. Love giving of His eternal life to the grasping hearts of stone no matter the pain demanded of Him to do so.

We negate God because we hate what we have become and what we were reminds us too much of the terrible significance of what we have become. However, nothing that ever went wrong, or any problem of life, ever was solved by denial of the problem. Nothing was ever resolved by denial of responsibility for the problem. The path of God is no less than Love. And that is too much for us. Yet there it is. We simply must do what is too much for us.

If we fall, get up again, say the wise.

God's goodness is such that He chooses to restrain His power that all may eventually be saved. Unlimited power must have the power to limit itself or it is not unlimited. And self-restraint is part of Love. Unlimited power exercised must eventually destroy to effect unlimited power by some ideological necessity of legal proof. God has no need for that.

Some fathers on Mt. Athos believe that God will even save the demons and the devil. The Love of God will outlast and overcome the grudge and power worship of the devil. Why doesn't God destroy the evil people and entities of this cosmos? Wouldn't that be more merciful to all? No. Not if Love must cease to be Love to serve power.

Destruction gives up on the beloved. And God is Love, so He doesn't give up on us. What of us, then? God involves all who suffer with Him in the work and rewards of saving their fellows and the rest of the cosmos with His Love. That's a tall order, but happens only by the painstaking life by example. There's no time to look ahead. There's only time to live Love now, ever presently.

That is the privilege of living and suffering for Love's sake, even for the sake of the one(s) inflicting the suffering. We can't believe that there is such Love, and are nearly embarrassed to tell others that we believe in that kind of Love. Of course we are embarrassed: we fall so short! We can't believe in that caliber of Goodness. And that's our downfall. We must believe it, get up in that belief, and go forth in Love to those who happen into our lives.

Goodness is generative and regenerative. It is intrinsically perpetual. Its opposite, power, is intrinsically destructive, and destruction destroys itself without Love and goodness to give it self-restraint and meaning.