My Story, From Heaven's Perspective (Job Redux)

As usual, God was on his throne with the angels, when the devil showed up to talk to God, as he sometimes does.

"Have you noticed my servant Sean?" God says. "He loves me wholeheartedly. He's a great servant who loves to go the extra mile, even though I let you torment him for years and wound him incessantly. He lives by my love, and he's a history maker, in spite of your work in his childhood, as well as his time at Celebration. And, he doesn't blame me for any of it. You've totally failed with him." The devil responded, "Does he love you for nothing? You've granted total access to your presense 24/7. He hears of your unending love, and he gets the joy of ministering to others, a joy he gets from his unfettered access to you. I also know that you are right, taking your presense away wouldn't destroy him, you may be right about that, but what if I got ahold of his gift? He would then surely curse you to your face." "Really?" says God. "Hmmm... I'll take that action. I'll even do better than that- I'll let you have the man's sanity, I'll even let you have access to most of his relationships. However, I get final editorial authority on the prophetic words you give him. You may craft the words, but I get to edit them before you give them. Is it a bet?" says God. "I want one more thing... those words you give him, they must be somewhat misdirectional. I want to spoil his reputation, by making it look like he's obsessed with something he's not obsessed with. Also, I want access to the man's identity. I want him to think he's the Christ- with that belief, it will be EVEN TOUGHER for him to recover. I think, with all of that, he will SURELY curse you and reject you entirely" said the devil. "Okay," said God. "I agree to your terms. Let's be clear about this, though- the wager is not about what happens while he's under your direction, but what happens afterwards that defines who wins. Obviously, after going through something like this, it will take time for anybody to recover. How about two years?" "Fair is fair. Done." said the devil, and he left to begin the work.

For a long time, I didn't know what to make of what happened. I've felt betrayed by my closest friend, the God I love and serve. Until today, that is. It's funny how God will use things, to bring about his purposes- I got my first assignment in a long time. It wasn't hard, and it wasn't crazy, though God did ask for a lot. I realized, though, that I'm still loved. I also believe, that God's "editorial privileges" in this situation, both made it tougher to recover, but also at the same time, he made progress on a few... projects he needed work done on, that perhaps couldn't have made as much progress on in as short a time, any other way. I know... many may disagree with me. I don't care. What I do know, is I was faithful, even if in my faithfulness I went off the deep end. Does that mean I'm going off my meds? Hell no. However, I'm beginning to lose some of the edge off my anger towards God. I think that is a good thing. Will it be another year until I'm fully recovered? Honestly, I didn't know what time frame to put there. All I know, is that I'm pretty sure the devil is losing the bet. I still love God... or at least part of me does. It's a start...