So there I was...
Rachel & I visited a nearby church this morning, and let's just say the sermon left my mind wandering a bit. (I have no problem at all with people who preach from a manuscript. I do, however, have a problem with people who read their entire manuscript devoid of any passion or energy and use the exact same tone of voice throughout the entire thing)
Over the last two weeks, I've been dealing with our stuff. Some of it has been going into a storage shed. (I hated to do it, but that piano wasn't going into our second story condo, and there was no way I was getting rid of that. It's got history.) Some of it has been given away. Some of it has been stared at as I've tried to figure out what to do with it.
I've been trying to figure out why I have such a problem getting rid of some of it, and then I realized that it was rather simple: this stuff belongs to me. It's my stuff, and we have a history, a relationship. To get rid of it is to discard that history and relationship, and that's almost never easy.
The reason this occurred to me in church is this: if I hesitate strongly to get rid of my stuff, some of which needed to go years ago, how much harder it must be for God to get rid of what belongs to him--the people he has created.
Some people will paint a picture of a God who seems almost eager to condemn. When I read Scripture, the overall witness seems to be that God is eager to save. I get the feeling that God is never eager to cast off the people that belong to him, that God has a hard time letting go. C.S. Lewis says it so beautifully when he offers the suggestion that the doors of hell are locked from the inside. Lewis is reminding us that it's not God who rejects--it's people who reject God. Those people, I believe are beloved by God, and God laments at having to let go of them, laments allowing their rejection of him to become eternal.
I believe that we belong to God, and surely God longs to keep us close, to bring us back, to embrace us with the fullness of God's love.
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