It was interesting for me to go back and read over the beginnings of this book study on my blog and realize that I had been inclined to focus on very different points in my first reading. Now, I suppose I take some of the earlier truths that I learned for granted and am beginning to be able to find new truths to grapple with in my reading. I think this is the way that God intends to reveal Himself to us through scriptures, giving us layer upon layer of Himself, unfolding Himself one truth at a time.
Yesterday in church, I played "How Firm a Foundation" on my violin. Building this foundation through "His excellent Word" as the hymn sings, is this process of accepting one truth and then stacking upon it another... and another... and another. I used to think that the need to review something I'd already read was a weakness I should not allow myself. What a know-it-all! I now find that I love to reread novels and literary classics and passages of scripture. It's amazing what you can glean the second and third time through!
Now onto chapter two of Willard...
This second chapter led me to think about the role of marriage in God's kingdom. I'm probably not the only one who has ever wondered why in the world Christ would say that marriage does not exist in heaven. I think about how much time and effort goes into this primary relationship of our lives, and I wonder what is it all for if it is not eternal? Well, scripture answers this by referring to marriage as a mysterious earthly example of Christ's relationship to the church.
Willard says that "God’s speaking is intended to develop into an intelligent freely cooperative relationship between mature people who love each other [with agape love] (HG 31)." This cancels out what I was blogging about yesterday, the idea that we can simply go to God to receive our daily list of to do's, and an answer for all of our questions. This relationship with God is RECIPROCAL. It is a marriage relationship.
The ladies of my church are studying Debbie Pearl's Helpmeet, a book on the role of the wife in marriage. It occurred to me yesterday in Sunday school that it would be quite possible to go all of my married life doing all the things that the book suggests that I am meant to do (based on Debbie's interpretation of scripture). I could do these things and generate the APPEARANCE of a great marriage without ever really having a REAL marriage, a real relationship with my husband. By never really stopping long enough to seek to understand my husband - who he is, what his dreams are, what drives him to do what he does - I could in fact be married without having a marriage.
This is what we so often do to God, however. When we approach Him simply as someone to be obeyed and not questioned, someone who cannot be understood, someone who will always be out of reach, we are truly saying that he is UNREASONABLE. Willard often points out in Hearing God that one of our biggest drawbacks in our faith is the assumptions we have about God. He writes about one such assumption in the fact that we often approach scripture with the mindset that we are reading "a book of doctrine, abstract truth about God." This creates a barrier between the reader and God so that "one can search endlessly without encountering God himself or hearing his voice (HG 35)."
It is not until we begin to value the revelation of the character of God through His word, until we truly pray for the desire to know God intimately, that we will begin to journey toward the union that God so earnestly desires to have with us as His creation - that normal life of God's indwelling.
Willard leaves us with two reminders in chapter two regarding our attitude when God does begin to reveal Himself to us. First, he writes that "God’s speaking to us does not in itself make us important (HG 38)." When we receive direct communication from someone of importance, it is often difficult for us not to share this information with others in a way that indicates our own significance in the eyes of our audience. We tend to like to "be in the know," and to make others feel our importance. God's communication, however, should always encourage not our pride, but our humility. We are important to God, but He does not choose to speak to us because we are important.
Lastly, Willard reminds us that "God’s speaking to us does not prove us either righteous or right (HG 39)." I think that this may be hard to grasp, because it seems that God's speaking to us would be a way in which He imparts His will to us. If I follow that will, then it would seem that I were acting in a right way, that I were living righteously even. However, I think the attitude that Willard is exposing in this statement is one we might have when we begin to, again, puff ourselves up with the idea that we are somehow deserving of God's communication because of our own righteousness.
I do not think that God's overtures of communication toward us are conditional on our attitudes, our assumptions, or the general condition of our hearts. God called me when I was in sin, He can speak to any of us whenever and however He chooses. What is conditional on our attitudes, our assumptions, and the general condition of our hearts is our own ability to perceive God's voice and what He is saying to us.
Okay, I'd better get ready for work, before I follow another tangent of conversation on this topic. Feel free to comment...
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