Given the Fall (see blog #80) and its consequences, we can see why God is now harder to find. But we can also see that it is not God’s doing. We are too caught up in ourselves, but that relentless love of His does not leave us solely to our own feeble devices. He pursues us, silently nudging events and manipulating circumstances to prod us toward Him. He is at all times as near as our next breath, ready at our invitation to enter our lives and fill the emptiness in our hearts.
Reason helps us to find God intellectually and gives us a rational foundation for faith, but reason is not where we actually experience God. The rational mind affirms God’s existence and then passes the torch to the heart. The heart is where we experience life’s fullness and enjoy all that gives it meaning—beauty, joy, relationships and love. The human heart can find peace only when the God who loves us dearly returns to it and fills it with His love.
A searching agnostic once said to me that while his mind was in a muddle sifting through all the arguments for and against God, he was strongly drawn to the person of Jesus presented in the Bible. He said the possibility that there is someone out there who loves him unconditionally had such a strong appeal to him that he could not let go of the idea. Inherent in truth is a power that can reach beyond the intellect and touch the human heart directly.
1 comment:
That is a very true post.
All of us have presuppositions that tend to blind us. The intellect is blinded by sin (See my post on the blindness of the human intellect http://pastoralmusings.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/the-blindness-of-human-intellect-and-the-foolishness-of-human-reasoning-or-why-rationalism-isnt-rational/) and needs something to arouse its passions so that it will look outside of its selfishness and look to God.
JLS
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