The Divorce Culture and Our Church
Why do so many people scoff at the idea of the existence of God? Maybe because we think science explains everything? But Who created science? And if science can't yet explain who God is, maybe we need a dose of imagination instead.
Why imagination? Because without it, we're just like all the other animals in the world. We wouldn't even need to debate the existence of God, nor would we care to if we, like the rest of the animal kingdom, had no intelligence. Intelligence, free will and imagination make it possible to study and think and learn. These are gifts found in no other creature other than humans.
So what about God? Who is He?
God has told us everything we need to know about Himself, and He does so with a story.
Like all good authors, God doesn't mess with his readers. We weren't born into a Science Fiction novel, but rather into a great epic Romance. The Romance story means hope, faith and love are as real as a walk on the moon.
We have all the elements of Romance set up in Genesis. The lover is God, the beloved (and desired) are humans.
Do we understand why we fall in love with a particular someone? We see in the potential of this lover, what could be, and want love to flourish. Yet, no love affair is easy. It takes work. Going back into the book of Genesis, we see the whole of human love is a reflection of God's love. Anyone who loves reflects God. This means we cannot erase God unless we eradicate love from our lives.
In every great Romance comes temptation.
The beloved forgets about the lover, and is seduced by the cad in disguise. Once the cad gives heartbreak to the beloved, the Lover wants to rescue her. But He can't just yet. She's not ready for him to swoop down and save her because now, she's not worthy of him. She must redeem herself. How? By suffering separation from her true love for a while. This makes her gain wisdom.
God, being the best of heroes, doesn't let losing His desired human beings stop Him from seeing the big picture. Even when Adam and Eve give Him the slip, even when they don't know they're in love with Him, God, the Author, knows where the story is going. The Fall is a temporary setback. The lover and beloved will reunite.
In all Romances there are separations and trials. How else will the beloved become a pleasing wife without learning how precarious this love affair is? The ending of the lovers' story doesn't really end, for love is an eternal wedding day in the imagination of the human heart, foreshadowing what God has planned.
We, who are alive now, are in the state of this Divine courtship. Some may be at the first blush of new love, a few may be chasing anyone but God, and others still may be on the verge of an engagement with all the promises of forever.
Any author worth his salt has a reflection of himself somewhere in his story, otherwise why write it? Therefore, God is everywhere in our Romance.
We know the Divine story calls for a reunion--the moment where love wins. The more lost we are, the greater the payout in the end. God is aware of how He almost lost us forever, giving Him more pleasure by what He gained by saving us.
There is no fear, because The Author is writing us a Romance which ends happily ever after. We learn to change and become truly worthy of Him, and to find happiness focusing on our Lover. This of course is our story.
Our Hero is steady and true and we are His treasure. We may not deserve a hero, but then Romances don't need to make perfect sense because love is beyond our limited understanding. Thank God for it.