In his great book “Epic” John Eldredge talks about the gift that God has given mankind in the form of a human heart. Our ability to love, and the freedom that God gives us to love is amazing…and terribly risky for God. Here is how he explains it:
“God gives us the freedom to reject him.
He gives to each of us a will of our own.
Good grief, why? He knows what free-willed creatures can do. He has already suffered one massive betrayal in the rebellion of the angels. He knows how we will use our freedom, what misery and suffering, what hell will be unleashed on earth because of our choices. Why? Is he out of his mind?
The answer is simple and staggering as this: If you want a world where love is real, you must allow each person the freedom to choose.
‘Power can do everything but the most important thing: it cannot control love…In a concentration camp, the guards possess almost unlimited power. By applying force, they can make you renounce your God, curse your family, work without pay, eat human excrement, kill and then bury your closest friend or even your own mother. All this is within their power. Only one thing is not: they cannot force you to love them. This fact may help explain why God sometimes seems shy to use his power. He created us to love him, but his most impressive displays of miracle — the kind we may secretly long for — do nothing to foster that love. As Douglas John Hall has put it, “God’s problem is not that God is not able to do certain things. God’s problem is that God loves. Love complicates the life of God as it complicates every life.”‘
(Philip Yancey, Disappointment with God)
Any parent or lover knows this: love is choosen. You canot, in the end, force anyone to love you.”
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Tags: choice, dignity, Eldridge, free will, freedom, love, Spiritual, Yancey
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