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Wooed by God

 
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ShepherdLeader.com Forum Index -> While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks -> Day 2: PROVISION
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robGCJAX



Joined: 01 Jul 2012
Posts: 10
Location: St. Simons Island

PostPosted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:43 pm    Post subject: Wooed by God Reply with quote

I know this is a strange concept, or at least it was strange to me. It began simply enough. God would give me little things that I wanted, provision. I would just think about something I wanted and God would give it to me. Most of these were small tokens, like getting a Great Courses CD series from the Teaching Company that I really wanted on super sale or finding a just-right shirt on the clearance rack at T.J.Maxx. It might be that I got to go somewhere I really wanted to go but thought I could not afford. I got to meet and hang out with some people I really wanted to get to know. This began to happen frequently, and it happened in a way that I knew God was up to something.

I had read that God would give you the desires of your heart if you desired Him and that seeking the kingdom first meant that God would take care of the rest. I had heard about this, but had not experienced it. Now I was. The gifts were not big enough to change my 1040 tax return. They were little things, things I especially liked.

My friend Jen calls them bijoux, small treasures. It would happen so quickly, it got to be a little scary. It was like in Ghostbusters when Dan Aykroyd chooses the Destroyer by simply thinking about the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. If I thought about wanting something offbeat, I would stop and tell God, “I do not really want this. I am just thinking about it.”
It was fun game. At first I did not get the point. There were some big things I needed from God that I was not getting. But He was lavishing these bijoux on me. I later realized God was wooing me. I felt a little creepy about it actually: one guy wooing another guy. My friend Jen suggested I try to see the Holy Sprit as a feminine expression of the nature of God, but that did not work either. That just seemed weird too.
Once I finally accepted that this was what was going on, I wanted to know why God was doing it. He did not need to give me gifts or do special things for me. He is God. I had accepted that. I loved Him because that is what you are supposed to do. Love God with your whole heart, mind, body and strength. I did not come close to this level of love; but, still, I was giving what I had.

I am one of those people with attachment issues. I want love, but I am also afraid of love. I like to chase after someone who runs from my affection, and I like to run from someone who chases me with theirs. It is a stupid game without a winner, but every so often I still like to play. God was working to help me stop playing this silly game with Him.
I had decided to love God because, as they told me in church, love is an act of the will. The churches I went to are big on the mind and the will, but love is more than deciding and choosing. Love is also desiring.
God was inviting me out of my cold love into true affection. God was showing me that He liked me and, dare I say it?, loved me as me. Sure He loves me in Christ, but He also loves me as an individual, not only as a theological concept. I was the one who was loving God as a concept. And who wants to be loved liked that?

The little gifts were fun at first, then weird, and finally overwhelming. Through His unrelenting kindness, God closed the distance I put between us. The interactions I’d had with God over time were profound, but I had still managed to keep him at a long arm’s length. These bijoux helped me to accept His offer of friendship and love. I can still resist God, but now I can also choose not to resist Him. I can allow myself to be loved and to offer Him my pitiful dysfunctional love in return. Love is what all mystics find. It is rather surprising.

When I launched out on my quest for God, I was not sure what I would find. I thought it would be the God of fire and lightning from Mount Sinai. I thought it would be the God of Isaiah’s, Ezekiel’s, or Daniel’s visions. God is all of that, but that is not who I encountered. I encountered a God who quietly and patiently loved me. He offered me personal, heartwarming gifts to get me to quit seeing Him in epic grandeur and to begin to see Him as being with me. Really with me. And not just with me, but for me.
Another one of the many big Christian paradoxes is whether God is transcendent or immanent. Obviously He is both. I got caught up in looking for the transcendent, big God and lost the immanent God who is close enough to give me a tender gift that is just for me. This immanent God freaked me out. I was okay with Him at a distance, but I was not so comfortable with His being close enough to touch me.
This game with God has continued. Now the gifts are sometimes bigger, but it is not about the gift. It is about the heart of the Giver. These gifts have broken my heart in a good way.

They have broken my heart of its hardness and stiffness. They have broken my heart so that it is open to God. This brokenness through love has allowed me to enter into God’s love more fully.
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