I brought up the personal PERSONAL Personal relationship with God because that's something I'm working towards in my own life, and craving. Since I'm a bit more mainstream, I've grown up hearing about the "God sized hole" in everyone's heart. And I am here to tell you, I've experienced it in plenty! How many others have I tried to shove in there, and how much chocolate? Too many/much of both, I assure you!
I agree that at least in part, we were made to be His companions. And obviously we were created for other reasons as well, maybe just because He enjoys creating? I think perhaps we concieve of Him as not taking joy in things/people, and I think that's false. I think He enjoys loving us, and that He delights in us, as hard as that is to wrap our minds around. (I am working on this in my own study so don't look to me for direction, I'm only just beginning).
I do think it is POSSIBLE to have a personal relationship to Him in this life, but very difficult. I think that might be one of the highest pinacles of aspiration... to really know Him. It's so easy to be distracted by this world, and the many many lovely things in it.
Today's devotional was beyond beautiful, and I want to share it, since it applies:
"We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His beauty, lovingkindness, wisdom or goodness, has any Beloved excited our love. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not quite understand what we were loving. It is not that we shall be asked to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a Stranger. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only becuse His. In Heaven there will be no anguish and no duty of turning away from our earthly Beloveds. First, because we shall have turned already, from the portraits to the Original, from the rivulets to the Fountain, from the creatures He made lovable to Love Himself. But secondly, because we shall find them all in Him. By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do". (CS Lewis, The Business of Heaven, entry for June 3)
It's the last line there that I often find comfort in... and which I find reflected in a thousand Christian living manuals. "Love God more and find yourself loving your spouse/friends/children more". But then we are told, reflectively, to love God more by loving those around us more. Is this a sort of Christian zen? (grin) I think it's one of the great mysteries, but I don't think it's therefore a waste of time to pursue it.
Further thoughts?
