Thy Will Be Done
Hell is not the absence of God, but the refusal of communion.
If God is, in His very nature, union, then perhaps goodness is not primarily about rule keeping, moral performance, or external righteousness.
Perhaps goodness is communion.
Union with God.
Union with one another.
Union within ourselves.
Union with creation.
Jesus speaks constantly in this language whether we recognize it or not.
“Abide in me.”
“Love one another.”
“That they may be one.”
The Kingdom of God is relational to its core. Love moves outward. It gives itself away. It seeks to know and be known. It forgives. It reconciles. It restores what has been fractured.
And perhaps this is why evil feels so corrosive to the human soul.
Because evil separates.
It divides humanity from God.
Humanity from one another.
Even humanity from itself.
The effects are everywhere around us:
grasping,
possessing,
controlling,
using,
dominating,
hiding,
striving,
self-protection at all costs.
Sin is not merely breaking arbitrary rules. Sin is the turning inward of the self. It is the refusal of communion.
The serpent’s temptation in Eden was not merely disobedience. It was separation. “You can become like God apart from God.” Since then, humanity has repeated the same pattern endlessly. We grasp for life while cutting ourselves off from the very source of life itself.
And this is why hell is such a terrifying reality.
Not because God delights in punishment, but because love does not coerce union.
Love invites.
As C. S. Lewis wrote:
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”
That line has haunted me for years because it reframes everything.
God does not force Himself upon anyone.
The soul that eternally says:
“My will.
My kingdom.
My control.
My way.”
eventually receives exactly what it has demanded:
existence apart from communion.
Hell, then, is the final crystallization of separation.
And yet the invitation of Christ remains astonishingly open.
Not:
“Become impressive.”
Not:
“Become powerful.”
Not:
“Win.”
But:
“Come.”
Come out of hiding.
Come out of striving.
Come out of self-protection.
Come back into union.
The tragedy is that many of us would rather remain in control than surrender into love. Because love requires vulnerability. Communion requires the death of the isolated self we spend so much of our lives defending.
But this is also the great hope of the Gospel:
that reality itself is ultimately moving toward restoration.
Toward reunion.
Toward the healing of all that separation has fractured.
Toward the moment when, at last, every wall falls away and God is “all in all.”
© Kevin David Kridner
Further Reading
For those who want to sit more deeply with these themes of union, separation, surrender, and communion, these works have profoundly shaped my own thinking:
The Great Divorce — especially Lewis’s exploration of the isolated will and the nature of heaven and hell.
The Weight of Glory — reflections on longing, desire, and the ache for another country.
The Divine Conspiracy — a vision of life in the Kingdom of God rooted in transformation and communion rather than performance.
New Seeds of Contemplation — profound reflections on the false self, solitude, love, and union with God.
The Return of the Prodigal Son — a meditation on coming home to the love of the Father.
The Interior Castle — a mystical exploration of the soul’s journey toward union with God.
The Problem of Pain — particularly Lewis’s reflections on freedom, love, and why love cannot coerce.
The Gospel of John — especially Christ’s language of abiding, oneness, and communion.
Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 13, and Revelation 21–22 — the movement from fracture toward restoration and union.