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Nobody chooses hell directly, but hell is the final destination for those who choose a self-serving, unrepentant lifestyle of sin (Matthew 7:13–14). It’s not the destination they are consciously choosing, but it is the path that leads to a real and dreadful end. It’s like standing at a fork in the road. One direction leads to life and joy with God, and the other, though perhaps paved with self-rule and temporary pleasure, leads to separation and eternal ruin. Though we do not select hell as an outcome in a direct sense, we absolutely pick our paths (Revelation 20:15). It is only by the mercy of the Lord, who is rich in grace and compassion, that anyone ever changes their life course (Ephesians 2:1–10). No person naturally stumbles into salvation. We are rescued, not recruited.
Why does this discussion matter? Because if our theology is distorted, then our thoughts and responses to suffering, difficulty, identity, and hope will be just as distorted. Faulty thinking about God inevitably leads to a life that falls short of the peace and purpose He offers to those who walk in step with Him. If you believe God sends people to hell—as if He were a disinterested deity arbitrarily punishing people rather than a righteous Judge allowing people to follow their chosen rebellion—then that distorted view will have immediate, life-shaping consequences. And in reaction, you may try to appease God out of fear rather than worship Him through faith. Your prayers may become bribes—your worship becomes performance. And your relationship with Him will take on the burdensome shape of a master-slave dynamic rather than a Father-child connection. Let me illustrate.
Mable is a chronically sick person. No matter what she does, no matter how earnestly she tries, she cannot seem to be anything other than a suffering person. Mable wakes up sick and goes to bed sick. Though she would not classify her struggle as theological, that is precisely what it is. The backdrop of her suffering is not just physical—it is spiritual. Her thinking about God is tangled, and it’s quietly intensifying her suffering. As we talked, the conversation naturally moved toward her relationship with God. That’s when I began to perceive what she hadn’t yet verbalized—Mable was angry with the Lord. She didn’t say that aloud, of course. Those are my words, not hers. If you ask her, she’ll say, “I love the Lord.” And in one sense, that’s true. She does love Him, at least to the extent that she knows how. She even tells others that she loves the Lord. But what is she supposed to say? “I’m mad at God”? That’s unacceptable Christian-speak. It’s more comfortable for Mable to wear a smile and suppress the questions.
In her view, it’s safer to stuff all that uneasiness she’s felt toward God underneath the rug of her soul, out of sight and certainly away from Christian conversation. It didn’t take long to realize that something was off. Something deep inside her had been agitated about God for a long time. My first course of action was to release her from the fear of hiding her most genuine thoughts. This hide-and-seek strategy is a common trap. People tell you what they think you want to hear rather than what’s truly going on in their hearts. Mable had learned how to keep her deepest thoughts in the dark. One of those hidden thoughts was her mistrust of God. She lifted her hands to praise Him on Sunday morning but trembled before Him the rest of the week. She was afraid of Him—fearful of what He might do next. Her poor theology held her in a silent, agitated bondage. The word theology is a compound term from the Greek: Theos (God) and logos (study of). Her understanding of God—her theology—was flawed in a deceptively significant way. She was one of those who believed God sent people to hell. Her logic followed a predictable path:
Mable believed in God. She believed in heaven and hell. She believed salvation was by grace and not works (Ephesians 2:8–9). She thought that God had saved her. These are good things. But underneath that good theology was a hidden operating system: a quiet narrative that she had been spared from hell but not blessed in life. In her thinking, God had rescued her from eternal torment but withheld earthly kindness. She was saved, yes, but she was also still suffering—and that suffering felt like punishment. In her unspoken theology, the Lord was punishing her just like He punishes people in hell. It made sense to her. If God punishes someone in eternity, why wouldn’t He also punish them here? In Mable’s mind, she had received one gift from God—salvation—but had been denied the second: deliverance from suffering. And for that, she was quietly, stubbornly angry.
This doctrinal error is not just a small misstep in her theology. It was Mable’s point of departure—the place where her thoughts began to veer from the truth. That flawed belief was fueling her decisions and distorting her relationship with the Lord. Her internal solution was simple: If she did enough good things, maybe the Lord would change His mind and take away her suffering. “If He controls who goes to heaven and who goes to hell,” she reasoned, “maybe He’ll choose to bless me if I earn it.” Mable had become what I call a saved-by-grace legalist. She knew she hadn’t earned her salvation, but now she was determined to earn His favor for the rest of her earthly life. And so, Mable tried. She gave everything she had to live a perfect life, hoping to merit His kindness, thinking that perhaps her works would finally bring relief. She viewed life the same way Job did at one point. Job tried to be extra righteous, even to the point of making sacrifices for his children, just in case they had sinned and somehow brought divine wrath upon the household.
And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate [his children], and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually (Job 1:5).
Mable, in a sense, was a modern-day Job—someone who linked behavior to blessing and tragedy. This mindset was at the core of Job’s struggle, and it became the very thing the Lord had to confront in Job’s thinking (Job 38:1–5). God saves us by grace, and we continue in grace. Our good works neither earn us salvation nor secure for us a painless life. But Mable wasn’t convinced. God sends people to hell—even good people, she reasoned—so maybe He treats Christians the same way. She began to live as if she were engaged in a high-stakes chess match with the Lord. Her every move was a bid for favor. Her quiet, unspoken theology was good works equal good results. The tragedy was that Mable could not be perfect. And her inability to achieve perfection led to cycles of despair. She tried to live rightly, but she failed. And when she failed, she spiraled:
It became an endless cycle of performance, failure, shame, and depression. Mable’s poor theology was feeding this cycle. Astonishingly, the entire loop was fueled by one flawed idea: The Lord sends people to hell. That single theological thread was enough to unravel her soul. I’ve seen other small but powerful strands of poor theology do the same.
One of the most common theological entanglements I’ve encountered—one that runs just as deeply as Mable’s—is how a person’s relationship with their earthly father distorts their view of God the Father. This kind of error often flies under the radar. It is subtle but deeply shaping. It shapes how we pray, how we interpret discipline, how we understand love, and how we measure approval. Marge is a case study in this type of distortion. A distant, disengaged, and unpredictable father reared her. He rarely spoke unless it was to yell at her. His words came as weapons, not wisdom. His hands were more familiar with slapping than shepherding. His presence brought tension, not safety. To put it plainly, Marge’s father only engaged when her behavior inconvenienced him. Their dysfunction created in her a lasting, fearful association between her identity and his approval. Years later, when Marge became a Christian in her early twenties, she brought this internal template with her into her Christian life.
While others were rejoicing in her newfound faith, a darker, more confusing narrative was threading its way through her soul. Her experience with her earthly father had silently defined what fatherhood meant in practice. And since God revealed Himself to her as a Father, Marge assumed He would be just like the one she grew up with. She became another saved-by-grace Christian legalist. If you had asked her whether she had earned her salvation, she would’ve answered correctly. She knew the Bible well enough to say all the right things. But there is a profound difference between knowing theology and living theology. There is a chasm between what we profess in theory and how we live in practice. Marge spiraled into seasons of depression—sometimes subtle, sometimes suffocating—because she was never sure of God’s goodness toward her. Like Mable, she had deep insecurities about the Lord’s heart. Different backstory. Same tension.
These are not irrational thoughts. In fact, they make perfect sense—if you start from a broken or incomplete view of God. But these kinds of logical assumptions, if left unchallenged, become the subtle tributaries that flow into major rivers of confusion, discontentment, and fear. And that flood will drown a person’s joy, assurance, and peace. To care for souls like Mable and Marge, we must do two essential things.
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13).
There’s a telltale sign that something is theologically wrong: the grace of God is not stabilizing the person. Their life is a cycle of highs and lows rather than a steady walk of humble dependence and progressive sanctification. The gospel, rightly understood, anchors a person with a kind of internal ballast. It doesn’t remove suffering, but it grants endurance and perspective. When our lives are more cyclical than linear, it’s usually a sign that our theology is not grounded in God’s true character. That’s your first clue. Something is off in how the person thinks about God, altering their interpretation of their suffering. God promises a way to escape temptation. That promise is not abstract—it’s real, tangible, and daily. If a person is constantly being overwhelmed by temptation, regularly falling into it, and rarely walking in sustained freedom, the first place to look is their theology. The problem is rarely behavioral at the root. It’s theological. How do they understand God? How do they relate to Him in suffering?
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways (James 1:5–8).
Our lives are windows into our hearts. As Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). Behavior is never neutral—it is always theological. So, if you observe instability, fear, and ongoing confusion in a believer’s life, don’t start with behavior modification. Go deeper. Look for theological entanglements. James is clear: instability flows from unbelief. The unstable person lacks wisdom, not mere intellect, but divine perspective. This deficit created a profound dilemma for both Mable and Marge. They couldn’t run to God because they were afraid of Him. The very Person they needed most was the One they feared most.
Both of them were believers who did not believe in the Lord, as far as their orthopraxy was concerned. Their doctrine affirmed His goodness, but their hearts did not rest in it. It’s the tension of the unbelieving believer, a soul condition powerfully illustrated in Mark 9:24: “I believe; help my unbelief!”
The gospel rarely aligns with human logic. It is counterintuitive, which is why it doesn’t come to our minds as quickly—or as clearly—as it should. This disconnect was a major factor for Mable and Marge. They were using natural reasoning, not gospel reasoning. And without a gospel lens, their logic made sense. The gospel doesn’t initially appear rational. It must be revealed and received. When viewed through the lens of the gospel, however, they began to see that the path to freedom starts with an uncomfortable but liberating admission. For Mable, that admission was this: God does not send people to hell like a cruel sovereign.
People choose hell by rejecting God. The Lord, in His mercy, is actively rescuing sinners from the path of destruction. He is not the author of suffering but the Deliverer from it. It is we who choose death. It is He who intervenes with grace. God is a rescuing God, not a detached punisher. The same truth applied to Marge. Her father was her version of hell—a source of fear and chaos. But God stepped into that legacy and gave her a new identity and a new Father. A faithful One. A loving One. Here is the hard, heart-level truth they both had to accept: they deserved hell. So do you. So do I. And if it were not for God’s sovereign, saving, merciful grace, they would have remained on the path to destruction. He interrupted their course, not because of their merit but because of His mercy.
Here’s the pivot point: when we begin to think we deserve better than what we’re experiencing, our souls descend into bitterness and despair. That posture reveals a deeply rooted theological problem—a problem we all must confront. Mable and Marge needed more than sympathy—they needed a loving community to walk with them and help untangle the theology of their souls.
I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD.
Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.
In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).
