The Love of God

As I was reading one of my favorite authors this morning, George MacDonald, I came across this incredible passage:

Men full of things would not once partake with God, were he by them all the day.

Nor will God force any door to enter in. He may send a tempest about the house; the wind of his admonishment may burst doors and windows, yea, shake the house to its foundations; but not then, not so, will he enter. The door must be opened by the willing hand, ere the foot of Love will cross the threshold. He watches to see the door move from within. Every tempest is but an assault in the siege of love. The terror of God is but the other side of his love; it is love outside the house, that would be inside–love that knows the house is no house, only a place, until it enter–no home, but a tent, until the Eternal dwell there.

The Cause Of Spiritual Stupidity, by George MacDonald, in Unspoken Sermons, Series Two

MacDonald is addressing the common human attachments to self and things. In our ambition, pursuit of our goals, and a focus on ourselves, we shut God out of our lives. And when we shut God out—when we fail to seek Him above all else—we can never experience the full and amazing joy of Him. Knowing Him—being completely enamored with Him—is what God desires for us, and is the real joy and freedom and life we really desire.

It’s like being in love, in that first overwhelming, emotional, all consuming kind of love where there is no thought for money or food or shelter or provision or future. There is only the loved. If we can only have each other, nothing else matters.

Only, when God is the loved, nothing else matters. Really.

God loves us in that way. And He knows that we will never be content or free or know joy and life until we love Him back in that way. Anything else, any other love in our life is a sham, a poor substitute, a mere shadow of what He is and wants to be to us. But we don’t know Him. We’re too focused on ourselves, our lives, our stuff.

It is for our good, for our joy and pleasure, that God works in our lives to draw us to Himself. Slowly striping away those things that keep Him out. Whatever it takes. However long it takes. Until we recognize that it is Him that we’ve been seeking all along. And then… Lovers, forever.

God back and read MacDonald’s comments again.

What is God doing on your outside, to bring you to invite Him to the inside? Have you barricaded against His assault of love? Won’t you surrender? Won’t you invite Him to make your place a house; your tent a home?