A “couple”:http://www.xanga.com/wildernesschild of “different”:http://bothworlds.typepad.com/both_worlds/2005/12/aslan_as_christ.html “discussions”:http://www.xanga.com/godchaesr have sparked my thinking on the juxtaposition of God’s mercy to His wrath. So many people in our culture today find it so very difficult to believe that love and wrath can co-exist in the same being. Yet, I find this not at all difficult to believe. Do not love and wrath co-exist in all of us, to some extent? Granted, the human version of wrath is often fraught with sinful weaknesses, such as hatred, jealousy, and the like. But to discipline a misbehaving child in such a way as to ultimately be for his benefit requires a level of love to meet that child’s need for instruction and correction, as well as a level of wrath to mete out the appropriate punishment. No less does our God mete out punishment and judgment from His holy wrath, yet He always does so in love, with the desire and the purpose of drawing us nearer to Him. Sin must be punished, and Jesus paid that penalty on the cross for those who would accept that gift. As such punishment for those believers is an act of correction, a notification, if you will, of disobedient behavior and a call for the wayward one to return to the only One Who can provide peace and contentment. God is a Father, our Father, and while He loves us very much, at times His wrath must be exercised in order to draw His children back to Him. His mercy and His grace stay His hand far longer than we deserve, but actions bring with them consequences, some of our own devising and some of the nature of correction. For this we should be grateful and rejoice, for we have Someone Whose entire goal is to bring us into full and complete fellowship with Him. I, for one, am grateful for the wrath of God, for the protection it provides me from my enemies and for the correction it supplies when I have gone astray. Love and wrath _can_ co-exist, for God is the very embodiment of such.