“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can’t. If a thing is free to be good it’s also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata – of creatures that worked like machines – would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they’ve got to be free.
Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (…) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will – that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings – then we may take it it is worth paying.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity
I couldn’t tell you how many times I have played Passion, the twelfth song on the new album by the band Young & Free, Youth Revival, this week. All I know is that I played it a lot. I think on Tuesday alone, I must have heard Karina Wykes’ sweet voice sing “I found you… I found you… I found you… I found you..” at least 15 times. As the music dies down she starts to sing: “I love you… I love you… I love you… I love you…”
It was probably during my tenth listen on Tuesday afternoon that my younger sister mentioned the theological problem that one of her teachers would have had with the song:
“He would have definitely had a problem with the fact that we’re saying that we found God. I mean, can we find God? Isn’t it God who finds us?”
Look, I’m no theological guru. I’m just a girl who longs to live in a deeper relationship with her Creator. Like a lot of other people I’ve asked questions like, “Why would God give us the choice to love Him? He’s so powerful, why wouldn’t He just make us love Him?”
In my eyes, it is a simple matter: Love is not love if it is not a choice and a process. Lost is not lost without the ability to be found.
It is for that reason that I find something so deeply intimate about those words: I found you, I love you.
In a particular version of Misty Edwards’ Render she sings, “I know you God…” and goes on to sing about what she has experienced God to be like. I felt true shivers all down my spine the first time I heard her sing that. She wasn’t being rude or pointing a finger towards God, and she definitely wasn’t talking about knowing of God. She could sing of her love for God because she had taken the time to learn and experience God.
In a recent article on the topic of arranged marriages, relationship coach Kira Asatryan had the following to say about how relationships typically work: “Couples create closeness through mutual acts of knowing (understanding another person from their own perspective) and caring (investing emotionally into another person), but knowing needs to come first…”
In a similar way, closeness with God comes from getting to know him.
In conclusion: God is intimately interested in loving us! We are what makes him happy – this is why we were created! He also knows that we can never truly love him without having taken the time to first find him, choose him, and then know him! Our natural response after that is closeness. It’s quite a mind shift from what some of us have been taught: We feel we need to try and impress God. We believe that God is angry with us and so we have to appease him with our prayers and sacrifices. We believe we can’t have a real relationship with him because there is no way that man can walk with God.
I’ve made a point in my life to seek out God. I need his closeness, and I can hear when there are others who have done so as well. Things like knowing and closeness can’t be put on, or feigned.
Today, friend, I encourage you to take the time out to seek God. If you have not pursued anything deeper and more meaningful, he is waiting for you. If you have not accepted a relationship with Jesus, please click on the banner below to understand more about how you can do so!