Merciful Justice - Aren't these contradictory terms??

So, this is following the post from a few days ago...more struggles with who God is based on the knowledge that He will send people to Hell.  Think about that for a moment.  What does it tell you about God that He would create people with the intention of sending them to Hell?  Most Christians dismiss these questions/thoughts as unimportant, but this is your God!  If we claim that we desire to grow in a knowledge of God (which if you are a Christian you should desire this) and you claim to love God (which as a Christian you should claim this) then how can you dismiss this as unimportant!?

So, how is it that God can create people with the INTENTION of sending them to Hell?  Wow...

So I recently read through Lamentations.  Amazing book, by the way, never realized it, but it's an amazing book.  The city of Jerusalem is being destroyed, an enemy is camped outside cutting off food supplies.  Women are eating their children in the streets.  People are dieing every day.  Destruction is rampant.  And this author (seems to be a leader of some sort in the city) is crying out to God.  Now there are a million different directions to go with all of this, because in the past week my mind has gone a million different directions.  I've learned so much more what God's mercy is by reading this book.  At one  point the author says "because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed.  His compassions never fail"  And I realized something.  This man is looking around at complete destruction, but he realizes, we deserve much worse.  God should just destroy us right now.  But He hasn't, which is mercy, not giving the bad that someone deserves.  Grace is giving someone good that they do not deserve and mercy is withholding the bad that someone does deserve.

But this led me to a dilemma.  How can God be both merciful and just?  If justice is repaying someone according to what they deserve and mercy is withholding the bad from someone that they rightfully deserve???anyone else seeing my dilemma here?

Now, I have thought since of some answers to this problem, but for my purposes today I will leave you with this question.  Feel free to comment any thoughts that you have.

Wisdom in Destruction??

So, I've realized recently that I originally started this blog with the intention of exploring/discussing new things that God was teaching me about himself, or that I thought perhaps I was learning about God.  At times I have gotten off of this course, at times I have stated things a little more emphatically than they should be if I truly see myself on a path of learning, but I realized today that the very thing I've been struggling with recently, the very thing that I've been contemplating and questioning, I have not posted about at all.  So here goes.  This will not be a well constructed, beautifully worded, eloquent post, because this will be a post of questions, not answers.  These have been recent thoughts and struggles in my head.

Question raised by a friend - "How could God, if He is love, create the world knowing beforehand that people would go to Hell?  And not only foreknowing this, but actually predestining it, actually planning that it should be so?"
This question has in some ways plagued me in the past few months.  It has been addressed numerous times by many great thinkers and theologians.  I know the "answers" to it, but it still in some ways plagues me.  I have listened to John Piper on the topic, and have read Jonathan Edwards' "The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners".  I have considered Ephesians 3 which says "I became a servant of this gospel...to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.  his intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.  In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence."  So we know that this mystery was kept hidden IN God for ages past.  I feel that one could contemplate that for a lifetime.  And we know that God created ALL things.... wow!  And this tells us His intent, His eternal purpose (what! Wow, this is God's ETERNAL purpose!!) that through the church (!) the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities [of the world.  Right? NO!] in the heavenly realms!!!

So, I've gotten thus far.  God has called the elect, the church, and in so doing his wisdom is displayed to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.  And this was His eternal purpose and the reason as to why he created all things (both the elect and those who will perish).
Ok, so I know WHY God created the world with the intention of some going to Hell.  He did it to display his wisdom.  Ok, great, let's move on.  But wait a second.....how could he do that without compromising his love?  How can God be loving and also wise in this kind of way?  Here John Piper's words ring in my head.  It is because the most loving thing that God can do is to be God.  Our only satisfaction is in God, so he must reveal himself and be true to who he is, and since he is wise he MUST display this and it is the LOVING thing to do.  Ok, makes sense.  I get it....but I still struggle.

WHY?? HOW??? How could God devise such a plan?  Isn't there another way?  Couldn't he have shown his wisdom and love some other way?

Ok, enough for today.  More thoughts later.