This is Amy Hall.

I'm here with Greg Kokel, and you are listening to the hashtag STRSk podcast.

Hello, Greg.

I never know if you're going to say hi or what. Hi. Okay. All right, we're going to start with a question from Brianna. All right. This is a really important one, Greg.

For most of my life, God has been portrayed to me primarily as a judge, watching closely, ready to point out where I fall short.

But I'm learning there's more to him than that.

How do I begin to reconcile that image with the reality of his love, grace, and kindness?

Well, I think that, Brianna, there are a lot of people that are in your same place.

And I had a struggle with this myself

to some degree. And there were two influences. One was raised Roman Catholic. And so, I mean,

there is a strong emphasis on the law. There are so many ways that even the Mosaic law has been radically expanded and religious traditions

that have become incumbent upon you to observe with the threat of hell hanging over you.

So among the so-called mortal sins was not going to church on Sunday, or missing what they

called a holy day of obligation, which I think there were six of those.

So you had 52 Sundays plus six.

And Christmas and New Year's were both holy days of obligation.

Eating meat on Friday when I was a kid, that was a fast day.

You're not supposed to eat meat on Friday.

That was also a mortal sin.

So that environment was very – I was really feeling the weight of the law from that.

And then I had a very demanding and in many kinds harsh father who became a Christian about a year before he died, and it was the real thing,

a radical change.

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