God’s Unrelenting Love
To make a man happy as a lark, might be to do him a grievous wrong: to make a man wake, rise, look up, and turn is worth the life and death of the Son of the Eternal.
— George MacDonald, Knowing the Heart of God, p. 57
Category: God
10 Posts
Works in Progress
To have faith is to have faith in process. God is not finished with us. We are works in progress, and as much as we would like to know the end point of all the growth we are asked to undertake, we often do not see an end point — or any point at all. At any given time, we may be able to sense only a fraction of God’s intention for us.
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 102-103
The Rich and the Kingdom of Heaven
Why should the rich fare differently from other people with respect to the world to come?
Those who ask such a question do not perceive that the difficulty comes precisely because they shall fare like other people, whereas they want to fare as rich people.
— George MacDonald, Knowing the Heart of God, p. 55
God Is Not Stressed.
Care is the operative word — infinite, tender care. This is what we doubt and also what we dream of. It is God’s nature to care for us, and it is perhaps human nature to doubt that care. We know all too well the human failings that come to bear when we promise care. We may, as parents, be too tired or too stressed to give our best care. We tend to project these same attributes onto God. We tend to worry that God is tired and God is stressed and that somehow looking out for us is something that has somehow slipped between the cracks.
But God is not tired. God is not stressed. God is the infinite caregiver. Our well-being is God’s priority. We are urged to trust this, to become “as little children.” We are asked to be wholehearted, to go back to a time before we were cynical and doubtful. God wants us to have faith. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” We are the little children. How do we become the children that we are?
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 97
Believing in God – Or Not
“Do you think it very bad of a man not to believe in God?”
“That depends on the sort of God he imagines that he either does or does not believe in. Most people have totally wrong conceptions of God. A thousand times would I rather see a man not believe in God at all than believe in an evil god that could cause suffering and misery as if he were a devil. But if a man had the same notion of God that I have — a God who is even now doing his best to take all men and women and beasts out of the misery in which they find themselves — and did not at least desire that there might be such a God, then I confess I would have difficulty in understanding how he could be good. When one looks at the gods that have been offered through the years who are not worth believing in, it might be an act of virtue not to believe in them.”…
“I believe that, no matter how uninteresting he may say the question of a God is to him, the God of patience is taking care of him, and the time must come when something will make him want to know whether there be a God and whether he can get near to him. I should say, ‘He is in God’s school; don’t be troubled about him, as if God might overlook and forget him. He will see to all that concerns him. He has made him, and he loves him, and he is doing and will do his very best for him.”
— George MacDonald, Knowing the Heart of God, p. 23-24
God’s View
When things feel certain, it is easy to believe — and sometimes things feel certain. Sometimes we are given the knowledge of more than a day at a time. We get a quick glimpse of the overview, of where we are being led and why. We see what God is doing with us. We get a glimpse of how it is we are being made larger and better. We even agree with God’s methods. Sometimes this happens, not often, and when it does, it is a blessing. When we get a glimpse of God’s will for us, we are often filled with gratitude. We are being made something with beauty and dignity. We are being made more than we dreamed of. We see ourselves as a part of the greater whole, and it is magnificent. God’s will has both ingenuity and grandeur to it.
If we could just see where God is leading us, we would all cooperate more of the time. All of us like to be made something larger and better, and we are willing, when we see what is larger and better, to go along with the temporary discomfort we may feel as our growing pains. The problem is that we so often cannot see where God is taking us. We hold such a small part of the larger picture. We do not see how our temporary discomfort is leading us to anything worthwhile. Feeling uncomfortable, we blame God. We feel abandoned and trifled with. We do not trust that God has us in his care and that in that phrase care is the operative word.
Being Known
When you keep your relationship with God exclusively fact-based and rational, it’s easy to make judgments about others and yourself. Such judgments reduce your anxiety and increase your sense of safety and protection. However, this way of being also has the curious effect of increasing the isolation you feel, both from others and within your own mind.
If you allow yourself to be known by God, you invite a different and frankly more terrifying experience. You are now in a position of vulnerability. If you permit others to know you, they can make their own assessment of your worth. They can react to you. You give them power to be affected by you and in so doing to affect you. You grant them the option to love you or to reject you. In essence, you must — must — trust another with yourself.
However, I will argue that it is only through this process of being known that you come to know yourself and learn how to know others. There is no other way. To be known is to be pursued, examined, and shaken. To be known is to be loved and to have hopes and even demands placed on you. It is to risk, not only the furniture in your home being rearranged, but your floor plans being rewritten, your walls being demolished and reconstructed. To be known means that you allow your shame and guilt to be exposed — in order for them to be healed.
— Curt Thompson, MD, Anatomy of the Soul, p. 23
The Way Home
Religion is simply the way home to the Father. Because of our unchildlikeness, the true way is difficult enough — uphill, steep, but there is fresh life with every surmounted height, a purer air gained, more life for more climbing. But the path that is not the true one is not therefore an easy one. Uphill work is hard walking, but through a bog is worse.
— George MacDonald, Knowing the Heart of God, p. 22
Restful Thankfulness
When we rest in God, we begin to have a different experience of God. It becomes less about our striving and more about our receiving. God is the great giver, and too often we are too busy and too self-driven to be able to receive. We ask for help, but then we hurry blindly on, and when our help arrives, we do not pause to acknowledge its source, we just grab for it and keep on moving. “God help me” we pray, but when God does, we are often too preoccupied to say “Thank you.”
A friend of mine is worried about money. She is afraid of ending up out on the street. Each month she worries about where her rent money will come from. Each month her rent money does come. God opens some new door to her, and the flow enters where least expected. My friend does not thank God for this continued support. She is focused, always, on her notion that the support will soon stop. In this way, there is no way that God can ever do enough for her. No matter what miracles occur, she always wants more. Wanting more, she is blind to the fact that what she has been given time and time again is enough. We do not want enough. We want more.
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 90-91
God’s Generosity
We cannot see the benevolence of God’s will for us because we do not expect benevolence. We expect God’s will for us to be niggardly. We so often see God as a miser, doling out the least possible benefit just to keep us quiet. We do not expect God to be generous. We do not expect God to fill our cup to overflowing. And yet, when we begin to work with prayers of gratitude, this is often the experience that we get: abundance. It is by counting our blessings that we begin to be able to see our blessings. It is by seeing our blessings that we begin to fathom the possibility that God could actually intend for there to be more of them. Gratitude gives us a glimpse of God’s good intentions.
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 89