Post by webrunner on Aug 31, 2009 16:00:20 GMT -7
I found this in a book of devotionals I have, I thought it was pretty good.
God's Heart-Touching Power
Frederick Buechner
From the book Breakfast for the Soul.
The power of God stands in violent contrast with the power of man. It is not external like man’s power, but internal. By applying external pressure, I can make a person do what I want him to do. This is man’s power. But as far as making him be what I want him to be, without at the same time destroying his freedom, only love can make this happen.
And love makes it happen not coercively, by creating a situation in which, of our own free will, we want to be what love wants us to be. And because God’s love is uncoercive and treasures our freedom-- if above all He wants us to love Him, the we must be left free not to love Him-- we are free to resist it, deny it, crucify it finally, which we do again and again. This is our terrible freedom, which love refused to overpower so that, in this, the greatest of all power, God’s power, is itself powerless.
Maybe some say, “I know human love, and I know something of it’s power to heal, to set free, to give meaning and peace, but God’s love I know only as a phrase.” Maybe others also say this, “For all the power that human love has to heal, there is something deep within me and within the people I know best that is not healed but aches with longing still. So if God’s love is powerful enough to reach that deep, how do I find it? How?”
If this is really the question, if we are really seeking this power, then I have one thing to say – perhaps it is not the only thing, but it is enormously important: ask for it. There is something in me that recoils a little at speaking so directly and childishly, but I speak this way anyway because it is the most important thin I have in me to say. Ask, and you will receive. And there is the other side to it too: If you have never known the power of God’s love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it – I mean really asked, expecting an answer.
Seek and you will find – this power of God’s love to heal, to give peace and, at least, something like real life, so that little by little, like the boy, you can get up. Yes, get up. But we must seek—like a child at first, like playing a kind of game at first because prayer is so foreign to most of us. It is so hard and so easy. And everything depends on it. Seek. Ask. And by God’s grace we will find.
God's Heart-Touching Power
Frederick Buechner
From the book Breakfast for the Soul.
The power of God stands in violent contrast with the power of man. It is not external like man’s power, but internal. By applying external pressure, I can make a person do what I want him to do. This is man’s power. But as far as making him be what I want him to be, without at the same time destroying his freedom, only love can make this happen.
And love makes it happen not coercively, by creating a situation in which, of our own free will, we want to be what love wants us to be. And because God’s love is uncoercive and treasures our freedom-- if above all He wants us to love Him, the we must be left free not to love Him-- we are free to resist it, deny it, crucify it finally, which we do again and again. This is our terrible freedom, which love refused to overpower so that, in this, the greatest of all power, God’s power, is itself powerless.
Maybe some say, “I know human love, and I know something of it’s power to heal, to set free, to give meaning and peace, but God’s love I know only as a phrase.” Maybe others also say this, “For all the power that human love has to heal, there is something deep within me and within the people I know best that is not healed but aches with longing still. So if God’s love is powerful enough to reach that deep, how do I find it? How?”
If this is really the question, if we are really seeking this power, then I have one thing to say – perhaps it is not the only thing, but it is enormously important: ask for it. There is something in me that recoils a little at speaking so directly and childishly, but I speak this way anyway because it is the most important thin I have in me to say. Ask, and you will receive. And there is the other side to it too: If you have never known the power of God’s love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it – I mean really asked, expecting an answer.
Seek and you will find – this power of God’s love to heal, to give peace and, at least, something like real life, so that little by little, like the boy, you can get up. Yes, get up. But we must seek—like a child at first, like playing a kind of game at first because prayer is so foreign to most of us. It is so hard and so easy. And everything depends on it. Seek. Ask. And by God’s grace we will find.