A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD?
Song of Songs 3:1-4
I John 4:7-21
"On my bed at
night, I sought him whom my soul loves... but found him not... But when I found
him, I held him, and would not let him go."
"We love because he
first loved us."
In response to my meditation last week someone asked me whether
I believe it is possible to have a personal relationship with God. Is it not more rational to believe that the
ultimate mystery behind the universe is an impersonal force, however majestic
and creative? We may then relate to it in mystic contemplation, but we would
not pray in the way Jesus taught us saying: "Our Father," for that
implies that God is personal. The God portrayed
in the Bible is not an object, an "it," even though the Bible sometimes
speaks of God as a "rock" or a
mighty fortress. God is rather a
"Thou" or subject, the Eternal Father to whom we can personally
relate whether in prayer or worship, or in other ways.. But in saying God is personal we are not
saying he is simply a big one of us. "We
speak of God as personal," as Sam Keen says, "because we are
personal, and we have only metaphors created by our time-bound, space-bound
imaginations with which to reach the ultimate reality that forever exceeds our
grasp." And nothing could be more
personal or relational than to say with St. John, "God is love." We may love mountains, trees and beautiful
places, but they don't love us. To say
God is love means that God loves us and relates to us. The story at the heart
of a the Bible is, in fact, a love
story.
The Song of Songs (or Solomon) is often interpreted as an
allegory of this love story between God and us humans. In the
passage we read, the writer describes how he searched everywhere for his lover:
"I sought him whom my soul loves; but found him not, I called him but he
gave no answer." She went searching all over the town, but still could not
find her lover. She asked this person
and that, but they did not know where her lover was. Then, all of a sudden she discovered that her
lover in the very place from which he had set out in search of him. And when she found him, she held him, and
would not let him go.
But the love story in the Bible turns that around. It is not we who are the lovers seeking God,
but God who is the lover seeking us to hold and not let go. Right at the
beginning God comes looking for Adam in the Garden: "Where are you?" God
asks. It is a question God addresses to
all of us as he seeks for us. The story of Jesus likewise is the good news that
God comes looking for us. "God
loved the world so much that he gave his only son..." God, the cosmic
lover comes searching for us in a far country, and the moment we turn towards
him, he comes running to embrace us. The good news is not that we have to find
God in order to establish a relationship with him, but that God comes to us,
seeks us out, and finds us right where wherever we are and in whatever
condition we might be. "We love
God," St. John writes, "because he first loved us!" Even though,
like Adam, we may play hide-and seek with God, God does not give up the search,
for it is the nature of divine love to seek and to save that which is
lost. God is like a bloodhound as Francis
Thompson discovered, the veritable "Hound of Heaven":
|
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him...
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? 'Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me. |
We can hide with Adam or run away with the prodigal, but we
cannot escape because we live, move and have our being in the God who is love. And
when he finds us he holds us, and will not let us go.
To participate in the life and
love of God is not some kind of mystical trance that takes us away from life in
the world. On the contrary our
relationship with God is inseparable from our relationship with others. It is not only personal but
interpersonal. "Those who do not
love a brother or sister who they have seen," John writes, "cannot love God whom they have not
seen." Right from the beginning of
the Bible's love story, love for God is inseparable from love for others. To speak of God as personal and relational,
to speak of being in relation to God, about being embraced by God, is
inseparable from loving and embracing others. John puts in bluntly: "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate
their brothers or sisters are liars."
To be in a truly personal relationship with God means being in a truly
personal relationship with others. We
don't have to look for God somewhere else because the image of God is sitting,
walking, living beside us!
Yes, the God "whom we
live, move and have our being" becomes known to us in personal ways, precisely
because we are persons who are loved
by him. It is for this reason that we
are perplexed when God seems to hide his face from us, rather than us from him, or when bad things
happen to good people. Yes, the problem
of pain and suffering perplexes us and sometimes makes us angry with God and
even lose faith. But if God is love it
is a love that suffers with us, a love that walks with us through the "valley
of the shadow of death," a love which having found us, holds us and does
not let us go even when our faith falters.
John de Gruchy
Volmoed 23 July 2015
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