"...how Christian, how stupid!"
"He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense." --C.S. Lewis
Some would contest the fact that this God is one of love; Lewis would reply that their "conception of love needs correction." Thankfully, and most divinely, "As Scripture points out, it is bastards who are spoiled: the legitimate sons, who are to carry on the family tradition, are punished [Heb 12:8]." Thank God I'm a bastard!
I'm not even sure what to write tonight, though I feel pressed to write something. Even at my lowest I am convinced, so very convinced, that I am loved beyond what I even know, and certainly beyond what I deserve. I have been paid that "intolerable compliment." The love of God is so crazy it must be true: for who would dream to love the unlovable, the pathetic, the stupid, the bumbling, the ugly, the failure? No one could make up such a ludicrous idea! How much more the Incarnation? I absolutely love this Kierkegaard quote:
"That one should push through the crowd in order to get to the spot where money is dealt out, and honor, and glory--that one can understand. But to push oneself forward in order to be flogged--how sublime, how Christian, how stupid!"
God's "inexorable sense" of love is truly something miraculous, and if he feels it, it is only because he has made himself to do so. We have not created the need in him, but he made it for us: "If he requires us, the requirement is of His own choosing. If the immutable heart can be grieved by the puppets of its own making, it is Divine Omnipotence, no other, that has so subjected it, freely, and in a humility that passes understanding."
For pain to be an irreconcilable problem with the idea of a loving God, two things must be happening: (1) We posses a trivial understanding or attach a misguided ideal to the word 'love'. (2) We look on the world as if man were the center.
What Lewis says is true:
"It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our friends, lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness."
Tonight I use the words of others, because theirs are the only ones that make sense.
God is surely good.
"The little clause 'God is' signifies a revolution." --Barth
Some would contest the fact that this God is one of love; Lewis would reply that their "conception of love needs correction." Thankfully, and most divinely, "As Scripture points out, it is bastards who are spoiled: the legitimate sons, who are to carry on the family tradition, are punished [Heb 12:8]." Thank God I'm a bastard!
I'm not even sure what to write tonight, though I feel pressed to write something. Even at my lowest I am convinced, so very convinced, that I am loved beyond what I even know, and certainly beyond what I deserve. I have been paid that "intolerable compliment." The love of God is so crazy it must be true: for who would dream to love the unlovable, the pathetic, the stupid, the bumbling, the ugly, the failure? No one could make up such a ludicrous idea! How much more the Incarnation? I absolutely love this Kierkegaard quote:
"That one should push through the crowd in order to get to the spot where money is dealt out, and honor, and glory--that one can understand. But to push oneself forward in order to be flogged--how sublime, how Christian, how stupid!"
God's "inexorable sense" of love is truly something miraculous, and if he feels it, it is only because he has made himself to do so. We have not created the need in him, but he made it for us: "If he requires us, the requirement is of His own choosing. If the immutable heart can be grieved by the puppets of its own making, it is Divine Omnipotence, no other, that has so subjected it, freely, and in a humility that passes understanding."
For pain to be an irreconcilable problem with the idea of a loving God, two things must be happening: (1) We posses a trivial understanding or attach a misguided ideal to the word 'love'. (2) We look on the world as if man were the center.
What Lewis says is true:
"It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our friends, lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness."
Tonight I use the words of others, because theirs are the only ones that make sense.
God is surely good.
"The little clause 'God is' signifies a revolution." --Barth
More, I say! More blogging!
Posted by
GraceKathryn |
3:35 PM
Dude, seriously! More blogging!
Posted by
GraceKathryn |
10:19 PM
got no time baby!
Posted by
takers |
8:45 PM