...dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!

So this is totally random but I was thinking about "Judgement Day" (capital "J", capital "D") today.  No reason why.  But I was thinking about how when we hear about Judgement Day from the church a lot of times we hear about the wrath of God and people getting what's coming to them and anger and hell and holy crap I'm such a sinner I should repent again just to be safe (seriously, I totally thought that way in jr. high and high school chapel.)

Most of the time I don't think we take time to consider the full reality of judgement day.  I think aside from the anger, there will be sadness and disappointment and "what could have been" on God's part. If you think about it, God is the only one who knows what each person is capable of in their most Christ-like form. What each person could do if they trusted Him and were free to become the people He meant for them to be and to do the things they were meant to do.  And by that I don't mean becoming missionaries or whatever, but just existing in their everyday life with peace and the joy that comes from knowing you're going to be ok in the end.

For God, I imagine a big part of Judgement Day won't be about, "You should have bowed down to Me!" as much as it will be about God looking at each person, each creation He loved into existance and seeing whether they met their potential by deciding to give themselves back to Him or not. When you look at it that way? It changes everything about Judgement Day and whether it's the day when an angry, egotistical God will wipe out those who didn't obey or whether it's the day when a loving Creator has to look at each of His creations and say to some of them, with the heart of a father, "You could have been so much more. You could have been everything you were meant to be.  You could have had the joy and peace you were always searching for!" then have to decide their fate.

I'm sure we will see God's anger on Judgement Day because the bible does talk about the "real wrath of God kinda stuff!"  And wrath is pretty big time anger. And that's understandable seeing as how some of those who chose to not trust in Him decided to go all out and turn their backs in a big way. So, yeah, I'm not denying God's anger. But I think a lot of times in Christian circles it seems to just boil down to good people vs. bad people.  When really we're all bad people and some of us just decided to give it up to God instead of believing we are capable of anything real on our own.  I think to exclude the omnipresent love of God, even during a discussion of his wrath on Judgement Day, is to paint an incomplete picture of everything God truly is.