“Even when people experience my ‘wrath’, they are to know that I love them and call them to repentance” (Inner Word).
The concept of the ‘wrath of God’ can instil fear in people. However, we must learn to understand it correctly from the perspective of our Father’s love. Because of our freedom, our Father permits our doing evil. Therefore, we are able to abuse our freedom and, in a way, use it against God. If this were not so, we would be like irrational creatures, unable to choose and instinctively following the predetermined laws of nature.
When the Father makes us feel the consequences of our wrongdoing, so that we experience His “wrath” and His grace cannot directly sustain us, it is not the vengeance of an angry and arbitrary sovereign, but a measure of love that goes hand in hand with the call to conversion. All our Father wants is for us to come to our senses. If we disobey Him and abuse our freedom, He will use the consequences of our wrongdoing to make us see and feel that we have taken a false course. Could our Lord do otherwise? Could He simply let us continue on the wrong path without warning us to turn back? Would that be love?
No, it would not; it would be a lie. No doubt God has infinite patience with us, and speaks to us again and again, calling us to repentance. But it is precisely His fatherly love that does not want to let us go astray.
It is better to be converted under the “wrath of God” and thus come to life, than to remain far from God’s grace, seduced by the sweet lie of a deception and a misunderstanding of mercy.