I’m still reading “The Ragamuffin Gospel” by Brennan Manning, and this is another expert of the book I thought I should share:
Imagine that Jesus is calling you today. He extends a second invitation – to accept His Father’s love. and maybe you answer, “Oh, I know that. It’s old hat. I’ve come to this book seeking an insight in a fit of fervor. I’m wide open. I’ll listen to anything you have to say, so go ahead, dazzle me. Lay a new work on me. I know the old one.”
And God answers, “Thats what you don’t know. You don’t know how much I love you. The moment you think you understand is the moment you do not understand. I am God, not man. You tell others about Me – that I am a loving God. Your words are glib. My words are written in the blood of My only Son. The next time you preach about My love with such obnoxious familiarity, I may come and blow you whole prayer meeting apart. When you come to Me with studied professionalism, I will expose you as a rank amateur. When you try to convince others that you understand what you are talking about, I will tell you to shut up and fall flat on your face. You claim you know I love you.
Did you know that every time you tell Me you love Me, I say thank you?
When your son comes to you asking, “Do you like Susan more ’cause she skates better and she’s a girl?” are you grieved and saddened over your child’s lack of trust? Do you know that you do the same thing to Me?
Do you claim to know what we shared when Jesus withdrew to a deserted place or spend the night on a hillside alone with Me? Do you know where the inspiration to wash the feet of the Twelve came? Do you understand that, motivated by love alone, your God became your slave in the Upper Room?
Were you grieved by the divine command to Abraham that he slay his only begotten Isaac on Mount Moriah? Were you relieved when the angel intervened, Abraham’s hand was stayed, and the sacrifice was not carried out? Have you forgotten that on Good Friday no angel intervened? that sacrifice was carried out, and it was MY heart that was broken.
Are you aware that I had to raise Jesus from the dead on Easter morning because My love is everlasting? Are you serenely confident that I will raise you, too, My adopted child?”
That’s a pretty humbling quote, and I believe God says many of those things to me, on a fairly consistent basis. Just like in the closing chapters of Job, God needed to remind Job that he was merely man, and the GOD was GOD. That we “know” even less than we think we know. And that our human words continue to confine the Glory, the Majesty, and Awesomeness of God, and by describing God with our mortal words we make Him smaller and smaller and smaller.
Isn’t that interesting that our words confine our God to human understanding? Is that why showing His love is taught and treasured in His word?
Thoughts? Disagreements?
