Daily Reading
Freedom to Choose
God begins our courtship with a surprise. Taking the blindfold off, he turns us around and reveals his handmade wedding present. “Here,” he says. “It’s yours. Enjoy yourselves. Do you like it? Take it for a spin.” A lavish gift indeed. It speaks to the deepest longings of our hearts, as men and women, uniquely. Exotic intimacy, breathtaking adventures. But what are his intentions? Surprisingly, we see in the first glimpse of God’s wildness the goodness of his heart—he gives us our freedom. In order for a true romance to occur, we had to be free to reject him.
The wildness of giving us freedom is even more staggering when we remember that God has already paid dearly for giving freedom to the angels. But because of his grand heart he goes ahead and takes the risk, an enormous, colossal risk. The reason he didn’t make puppets is because he wanted lovers. Remember, he’s inviting us up into a romance. Freedom is part of the explanation for the problem of evil. God is the author of some storms directly; but he is the author of the possibility of all storms in giving us freedom.
And we are the ones who opened Pandora’s box.
Can you imagine if on your honeymoon one of you sneaked off for a rendezvous with a perfect stranger? Adam and Eve kicked off the honeymoon by sleeping with the enemy. Then comes one of the most poignant verses in all Scripture. “What is this you have done?” (Gen. 3:13). You can almost hear the shock, the pain of betrayal in God’s voice. The fall of Adam and Eve mustn’t be pictured as a crime like theft, but as a betrayal of love. In love God creates us for love and we give him the back of our hand. Why? Satan gets us to side with him by sowing the seed of doubt in our first parents’ minds: “God’s heart really isn’t good. He’s holding out on you. You’ve got to take things into your own hands.” And Paradise was lost.
Yet there was something about the heart of God that the angels and our first parents had not yet seen. Here, at the lowest point in our relationship, God announces his intention never to abandon us but to seek us out and win us back. “I will come for you.” Grace introduces a new element of God’s heart. Up till this point we knew he was rich, famous, influential, even generous. Behind all that can still hide a heart that is less than good. Grace removes all doubt. “Not only do I forgive you, but I will come for you and win you back to me.”
And then the long story of God’s pursuit of humanity begins.
Want More? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today
The wildness of giving us freedom is even more staggering when we remember that God has already paid dearly for giving freedom to the angels. But because of his grand heart he goes ahead and takes the risk, an enormous, colossal risk. The reason he didn’t make puppets is because he wanted lovers. Remember, he’s inviting us up into a romance. Freedom is part of the explanation for the problem of evil. God is the author of some storms directly; but he is the author of the possibility of all storms in giving us freedom.
And we are the ones who opened Pandora’s box.
Can you imagine if on your honeymoon one of you sneaked off for a rendezvous with a perfect stranger? Adam and Eve kicked off the honeymoon by sleeping with the enemy. Then comes one of the most poignant verses in all Scripture. “What is this you have done?” (Gen. 3:13). You can almost hear the shock, the pain of betrayal in God’s voice. The fall of Adam and Eve mustn’t be pictured as a crime like theft, but as a betrayal of love. In love God creates us for love and we give him the back of our hand. Why? Satan gets us to side with him by sowing the seed of doubt in our first parents’ minds: “God’s heart really isn’t good. He’s holding out on you. You’ve got to take things into your own hands.” And Paradise was lost.
Yet there was something about the heart of God that the angels and our first parents had not yet seen. Here, at the lowest point in our relationship, God announces his intention never to abandon us but to seek us out and win us back. “I will come for you.” Grace introduces a new element of God’s heart. Up till this point we knew he was rich, famous, influential, even generous. Behind all that can still hide a heart that is less than good. Grace removes all doubt. “Not only do I forgive you, but I will come for you and win you back to me.”
And then the long story of God’s pursuit of humanity begins.
Want More? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today