day no. 16,898: God is tenderer to His torturers than we are to our admirers

Thou wilt not break as we have broken

The towers we reared to rival Thee.

More true to England than the English

More just to freedom than the free.

O trumpet of the intolerant truth

Thou art more full of grace and truth

For the hopes of the world than the world that made them,

The world that murdered the loves of our youth.

Thou art more kind to our dreams, Our Mother,

Than the wise that wove us the dreams for shade.

God is more good to the gods that mocked Him

Than men are good to the gods they made.

Tenderer with toys than a boy grown brutal, 

Breaking the puppets with which he played.

— The Towers of Time by G. K. Chesterton

God is more kind to His accusers than men are to their flatterers. Jesus offers more forgiveness to His murderers than men do to their fan clubs.

Luke 6:35

Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

God is good to those who are bad to His good gifts. He provides good things to bad people despite their mistreatment of them. He sent His one and only Son to people who took Him for granted instead of taking Him with gratitude.

God is tenderer to His torturers than we are to our admirers.

God gives good things to those who confuse stewardship with ownership. We imagine ourselves the rightful owners of the gifts we've been given and presume that we merited God's grace.

"We teach them not to notice the different sense of the possessive pronoun .. . Even in the nursery a child can be taught to mean by 'my Teddy-bear' not the old imagined recipient of affection to whom it stands in a special relation (for that is what the Enemy will teach them to mean if we are not careful) but 'the bear I can pull to pieces if I like.'" — C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

God is more tender with us than we are with our toys. We make idols so that we can break them. We love to own things for the sake of doing with them as we please, but God owns everything and does what is best for it. Despite His claims to complete dominion, He leverages His power for the good of the creation. Man, however, often makes things merely to have something to rule ruthlessly.

Matthew 5:45

For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Despite our desire to destroy His gifts, He continues to lavish His kindness upon us. Even though we use rainwater to waterboard, He continues to send Spring showers. Even when we use the warmth of the sun to cook our neighbors, He makes the sun rise in the morning.