God is omnipotent, right? God is in charge of the universe, and of our world, and can do anything God wants to do. That's our understanding of God, isn't it? So, given that, why are there all the problems that exist in the world? Why doesn't God just take charge and make everything right? And, if God really wants us to be with Him in heaven for eternity, why doesn't God just do that (although, perhaps that is exactly what God does do-- see yesterday's post on that topic)? We see the answer to this whole series of questions in one fairly-brief aside that Jesus makes in today's Gospel (Lk 13: 31-35) where He says: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!" Put another way, Jesus is saying that He'd love to take control and make everything right, as a hen would do with respect to her chicks, but our free will gets in the way. We are "unwilling" to permit that. And God always respects that free will. For most of us, that's where the problem comes in, because our will wants to be in charge. We don't want to be a bunch of docile chicks under the hen's wings. We want to be "like God," to quote the motivation that was behind the desire to eat the fruit God told Adam and Eve not to eat in the Garden of Eden. God could respond to that aspect of human nature by simply overpowering us, by showing the power and majesty of the Divine in such a way that we had no choice other than to believe in God and to do what God wants. But that would not be loving God-- that would be submitting to God's will. That's why Jesus always resisted the idea of publicizing His miracles-- He didn't want people to believe in Him just because of His power. C. S. Lewis put it this way: "God woos us; He does not ravish." God goes as far as God can to encourage us to love Him, will still permitting us to be "unwilling" like the people of Jerusalem. There is a beautiful and evocative painting by William Holman Hunt hanging above one of the side altars in St. Paul's Cathedral in London called "The Light of the World." It was painted in the early 1850's, and shows Jesus holding a lantern in front of a wooden door in the middle of a woods. It is nighttime, and the door looks overgrown and disused. Jesus is knocking on the door. As you look at the painting, one thing finally hits you: the door has no handle. It will only open if the people inside open it. Jesus can knock, but He can't open the door. He will only get into the house if the people inside are "willing" to let Him in. So it is with us. We have to be willing to open the door to Jesus. All the difficulties in the world flow ultimately from from our decisions-- individually and collectively-- not to open the door. Of course, Jesus could simply force the door open, but that would mean He would turn us into chicks, not human beings. God doesn't want the love of chicks-- He wants the love we freely choose to give. That's why we have that darn free will.