GOD THE AGELESS ROMANCER
So long as we imagine it is we who have to
look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about---He is
looking for us. Simon
Tugwell
In my sophomore years in high school I (John)
fell in love with a beautiful junior named Joy. Our first dates were romantic,
exciting, and full of adventure. I gave her my heart. One day several months
into the relationship, I was trying in vain to thumb a ride home when I saw her
car approaching. My heart leaped with anticipation, but Joy whizzed past in her
convertible with another guy at the wheel. Adding insult to injury, she waved
gaily as they rushed by. I felt the fool, which is what we often do when we
feel betrayed. And I never gave her my heart again.
Everyone has been betrayed by someone, some
more profoundly than others. Betrayal is a violation that strikes at the core
of our being; to make ourselves vulnerable and entrust our well-being to
another, only to be harmed by those on whom our hopes were set, is among the
worst pain of human experience.
Sometimes the way God treats us feels like
betrayal. We find ourselves in a dangerous world, unable to arrange for the
water our thirsty souls so desperately need. Our rope won’t take the bucket to
the bottom of the well. We know God has the ability to draw water for us, but
oftentimes he won’t. We feel wronged After
all, doesn’t Scriptures say that if we have the power to do someone good, we
should do it. (Prov. 3:27)? So, why doesn’t’
God?
As I spoke with a friend about her painful life,
how reckless and unpredictable God seems, she turned and with pleading eyes
asked the question we are all asking somewhere deep within: “How can I trust a
lover who is so wild?” Indeed, how do we not only trust him, but love him in
return? There is only one possible answer: You could love him if you knew his
heart was good…………
Does God have a good heart? In the last
chapter Brent spoke of God as the Author of the story, which is how most people
see him if they see him at all. And, as Hamlet said, there’s the rub. When we think of God as Author, the Grand
Chess Player, the Mind Behind It All, we doubt his heart. As Melville said. “The
reason the mass of men fears God and at bottom dislike him is because they
rather distrust his heart and fancy him all brain, like a watch.” Do you relate
to the author when reading a novel or watching a film? Caught up in the action,
do you even think about the author? We identify with the characters in the
story precisely because they are in the story. They face life as we do, on the ground,
and their struggles win our sympathy because they are our struggles also. We
love the hero because he is one of us, and yet somehow rises above the fray to
be better and wiser and more loving as we hope one day we might prove to be…………..
In the story that is the Sacred Romance begins
not with God alone, the Author at his desk, but God in relationship, intimacy
beyond our wildest imagination, heroic intimacy. The Trinity is at the center
of the universe; perfect relationship is the heart of all reality. Think of
your best moments of love or friendship or creative partnership, the best
times, with family or friends around the dinner table, your richest
conversations, the acts of simple kindness that sometimes seem like the only
things that make life worth living. Like the shimmer of sunlight in a lake,
these are reflections of the love that flow among the Trinity. We long for intimacy because we are made in
the image of perfect intimacy. Still, what we don’t have and may never have
known is often a more powerful reminder of what ought to be.
“God does not need the Creation in order to
have something to love because within himself love happens.”
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