Knock or kick and break the bloody door down?

Recently I suffered from deep grief through the loss of someone I loved. To find comfort, I read some words by C.S. Lewis, well known for his books on Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Lewis lost his wife Helen, his only love, and following that loss he wrote a book called 'A Grief Observed'. In his deep sense of loss, when he reached out to God, he felt a sense of isolation and alone-ness. He said:

But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become.

In my grief during this period, as well as in many other difficult times in my life, I have often felt the same, and been angry that God does not come closer and make the loss easier, send his angels to carry me over, show me mercy...

However, in my recent relationship, in playing the role of the lover, instead of the beloved, I had a different kind of insight. I found that with the person I loved, no matter how deep my love was, and no matter what ways I sought to express this love, because she did not have the equipment to receive this love, it was the same for her as if I did not love her.

I think that we are isolated from the love of God not because of the deficit on the part of God, but because it is we, we who unable to bear the depth of the compassionate love of God. Its like living in an atmosphere filled with oxygen, but if we did not have noses, we might just as well asphyxiate and die, as we might on mars where there is no oxygen. God's love is there, constant, permanent, available, waiting, but it is our own nueroses and quirks of personality, damaged hearts and minds, manipulations, neediness and greed, that takes away from us the ability to be loved in the pure sense of the way God can love us.

Sometimes we might be trying to fix the wrong thing when we are trying to gain the love of God, or the object of our love. Instead of getting a nose, or sorting our a nuerosis that prevents ourself from being able to accept simple love, we might be doing what Lewis says when we:

"Knock and it shall be opened." But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac? And there's also "To him that hath shall be given." After all, you must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can't give. Perhaps your own passion temporarily destroys the capacity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sunday distractions at Colpetty Methodist Church

Thoughts of growing up days and church. My mother, ensured the family got its weekly share of church. For some reason, for a reason beyond me at that time, we always sat at the very back. Since it was a very big church (by Colombo standards), this meant we were very far away from the Reverend (that's what we called the preists in our church. Reverend. Hmm. Person who is reverential? Chief of revering? Interesting choice on noun for a preist. Very interesting, as compared to, father, boring, and also too family-like for us methodists. We wanted to make it very clear we were not related in any way At All. Also not, pastor. No, that was for only those neo-liberal low-churches. We, with our stip upper lips, and suede shoes, didn't need pastoring at all. We were not sheep. We were in the cat family, we chose to be reverent, or irreverant as we felt. In those days, we actually sang bona-fide hymns. No happy-clappy hand gestures and guitars for us. It was always pre-1900, and it was a...
Read more

What's happiness?

The balmy feeling on a very windy day, when it just might rain, but it just might not. The simple euphoria of being on the edge of crazy weather. Unexpected laughter that bursts from you, at what a colleague said, a colleague you thought so far was shy and quiet. A warm hug from a friend you haven't seen for a year, who hugs you though you are grubby and tired after a long hard day. That first taste, just as you bite into an almond, or a peice of feta cheese, when you come home raving hungry after a long day. The love that bubbles up like champagne when a dog you don't know, decides to like you and play with you. A funny you tube video, that shows talent, sheer fun, humor, art and love of life is not about contemporary notions of beauty and perfection. But the way human spirits shine as bright as the sun through all the imperfections. The relief at the end of a long period of self-doubt, when you come across a book, have a chance conversation, or hear something in a talk that g...
Read more

Enduring Word Commentary on Romans 1

These are extracts from the  Enduring Word Commentary on Romans 1 A bondservant… an apostle : Paul’s self-identification is important. He is   first   a   servant of Jesus Christ , and   second  called to be an apostle . There were several ancient Greek words used to designate a slave, but the idea behind the word for   servant   ( doulos ) is “ complete and utter devotion , not the abjectness which was the normal condition of the slave.” (Morris) “ A servant of Jesus Christ,   is a higher title than monarch of the world .” (Poole) The word “ God ” occurs 153 times in Romans; an average of once every 46 words – this is more frequently than any other New Testament book. In comparison, note the frequency of other words used in Romans:  law  (72),  Christ  (65),  sin  (48),  Lord  (43), and  faith  (40). Romans deals with many different themes but as much as a book can be, it is a book about...
Read more