A Big Choice to Make

There was once a stunningly beautiful angel called the Bringer of Light (Lucifer). He served God and worshipped Him like everyone else in heaven did.

Then one day he wondered why God was always in charge. Lucifer thought heaven would be much better if he was in charge. “I could do a much better job than God”, he thought. “I should be God around here.”

He told his friends and, as friends often do, they agreed with him. “Yes, you should be God. You would be great at it! You could give us the best places in heaven if you were in charge.”  So, they made a plan and convinced a third of heaven’s angels to follow them in trying to push God off the top spot in heaven.

It didn’t end well for them - God had made all of them and of course He is vastly bigger and more powerful than anything He Himself created. They were thrown out of heaven and became ugly, angry, violent and filled with hate. Lucifer’s name was changed to Satan, the devil, and, because he was separated from God's light, he became completely dark inside.

The angels who followed him had no idea what life would be like with him in charge. They soon discovered it was horrific. It was a lot like hell. God is actually the only source of everything good, so without God, life is horrendous. Heaven is only paradise because God, the perfectly wonderful one is in charge.

I sometimes wonder what Lucifer could possibly have been thinking. Surely, he could see he wasn’t God, and wasn’t anything like God. Why did he think he should be in charge of heaven? But maybe it surprises me only because I haven’t yet seen that exactly the same issue is repeating itself in me. It’s just on a much smaller scale. A ‘me-sized’ scale.

Whenever I say, “My will be done”, not God’s will, I am saying I want to be God of my own tiny universe, my own tiny version of heaven. When I say, “My will be done”, I am actually behaving as Lucifer did.

The main reason each of us has been placed on earth is to make this choice: Who do we want to have in charge of our own little ‘me-sized’ version of heaven, which is our own life? It’s on a different scale, but the choice we face is exactly the same choice as Lucifer faced. Do I want God to be in charge or do I think it should be me?

We all have a free will choice in this life, which means we can choose light or darkness, good or evil, God or self. Lucifer chose badly. Here on earth, God gives each of us time to make our choice. We may have to live with that choice forever. Do we want God as our king forever or do we want ourself to be king forever?