I feel the pain of God

I feel the pain of God

If you think about the relationship one can acquire with the Lord and how the closer you get, somehow the spiritual essence between both becomes real.  It may very well become an intimacy unlike nothing humans alone can share.  Rather this type of intimate knowledge can only feel alive when two spirits are open to each other.  It reminds us of the words spoken by the deacon when preparing the chalice before the Eucharistic celebration; “By the mystery of this water in wine, may we share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”  St. Anthnasius said, “God became man, so that man might become like God.”

The thankless many who do not or will not thank God who has given each individual person so much that the knowledge of such willful activity reaches in and saddens me.  Psalm 115 is a reminder of how one should react when reading or hearing these words;  “Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give the glory for the sake of your love and your truth, lest the heathen say; where is their God?  But our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he wills.  Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.”

“They have mouths but they cannot speak; they have eyes but they cannot see; they have ears but they cannot hear; they have nostrils but they cannot smell.”  “With their hands they cannot feel; with their feet they cannot walk, no sound comes from their throats.  Their makers will come to be like them.”

Does God feel their rejection, their ignominy, their lack of respect or thankfulness?  Absolutely!  If one is close enough to God’s Spirit who not only convicts us but in a deeper mode allows us the ability to sense in a spiritual way these affronts on God.  I have come to realize that his hurt can be mine since these will also place a feeling of rejection, not between us, but what he feels.  It can be like the one you dearly love has been attacked by an enemy and the very wounds are yours as well.  If he is hurt, then so are we.

Can we who are human understand the pain perpetrated on the infinite?  Yes, in a way different from God, but the same as God.  The Incarnation places Christ within our world, and opens the world of the divine to us.  His pain is ours once we can share the intimacy that does exist if we will be open to him.

Is it wrong to say I feel the pain of God?  Not if our sensitivity is honest and intimately loving.  Herein is the meaning of an intimacy with God; honest Love.

When we sin, and all of us do, it isn’t the punishment we deserve that has a lasting impact on God, it is the pain that we place on Him by the way each one turns away from his love.  Each of us is the Prodigal Son whom our Father looks in earnest for our return as we say say “I am sorry”.  This is the remedy for wiping away tears of a loving, waiting, hoping Father.  This is intimacy!   

Ralph B. Hathaway, Intimacy with God.