Our other daughter gets home ...and our two youngest sons sit down with her after we all greet her. They talk about different plots they dreamed up, about how they think the next Star Wars movie may play out ...it is, I think, over a year away, but it interests them and they like to talk about it. They exchange ideas while Mom let's the dogs outside to go to their plot.
Of course, I am writing this ...but, soon we will all join together to watch a movie we got from the library, or one which one of us got as a birthday gift.
My wife talked to her dad on the phone today, and we are supposed to go visit him this evening. He only lives 4 miles away.
Tomorrow I will call my parents. Dad is usually finishing up some book ...and will likely tell me of the ending. He read most of the books in the small library in their town ...the ones he considers worth reading, and often he will go back and read them a second time. Mom probably has finished the scarf she was knitting. They live in a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan ...approximately 435 miles away.
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Imagine what was going on ...even before our world, even before the world of the angels. Instead of my family, with the conversation I wrote about above ...there was only One family: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And they are One.
They are in need of nothing, because everything is of them. They know everything, and can be everywhere at the same time. But, imagine the same conversation as above.
One Person calls ...not on the phone, because they don't need phones to call, "I'm coming over for a visit."
Other Person: "I know ...but, you don't need to, you are already here."
One Person (speaking of sports): "You won't believe who they just traded?"
Other Person: "I know ...and I know who 'they' are too."
One Person: "You know about the movie that's coming out in a thousand years?"
Other Person: "I know ...it's coming out tomorrow."
One Person: "That's right, a day is as a thousand years in our time."
Other Person: "I suppose you know how it's going to end."
One Person: "Of course."
Other Person: "I'm going for a walk."
One Person: "I know. How far are you going? Never mind, I know that too. I'm going to read a book while you go for the walk."
Other Person: "I'm back!"
One Person: "How far did you go ...never mind, I know."
Other Person: "Four miles ...four hundred miles, it's all the same. Only the blink of an eye."
One Person: "Yes, I know. I finished the book while you were gone."
Other Person: "How did it end ...never mind, I know. I wrote it."
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I am in no way implying that life was dull or boring for our God ...nor am I changing my original statement that God is not in need of anything, or of us. Yet, there is a difference between 'need' and 'desire'. There is also a big difference with how 'desire' is with God. Our desires can often get us in trouble. Yet, God's desire is so wonderful that I can't even comprehend it. The Trinity wouldn't have to sit around a table like in a boardroom, contemplating. To me, most boardrooms would be a 'bored' room (or boring room) ...but, it certainly would not be the case with God. The excitement and anticipation would be so great, it would be greater than anything I could ever imagine. God didn't have to decide what to do ...as He would create the angels first, and those who chose to remain with Him would be sons of God. The second group of sons of God ...they would be the humans who followed Him. The first to be asked to follow Him was Adam.
Let me put it another way. Suppose I received a plant for a birthday gift. If I was really appreciative of the gift ...I would water that plant and make sure it gets the right amount of sunlight. I would tend to it tenderly.
Adam, before Eve was created, was placed in a garden to tend it. And to add to the shared experience of appreciation, God created animals and birds which he paraded in front of Adam ...allowing him to name them, sort of a fun observation of form & function, and how the other creatures appreciated and utilized their environment.
Adam also saw how the birds flew together, and how the animals paired off. Having had God share all this with him, Adam wanted to also share ...much as the other creatures shared.
This was all shortly after it stated, "In the beginning ..." Yet, it was just the beginning of what was to be learned about. There is much more which defines it, but the beginning understanding was for Adam and Eve to take a fall together ...the beginning of their love?
I guess it sort of is ...like falling in love.
But, we usually refer to it in a much more romantic sense ...and often initially less problematic, at least idealistically.
I say it is not the beginning of love ...because love goes way beyond just wanting to reach out and share your entire life together, the good and the bad. Love begins by reaching out ...yet love really seems unable to contain itself, or when it does, it is only for the moment of reflecting on how it is going to direct beyond itself.
Another aspect of love ...is that it does not oppose itself.
Love cannot be love when it works not to be love.
The purest love can never be obtained, but can only approach or appreciate the purity of where it is ...in God, Himself.
And the appreciation of love is in accepting it, or Him, the One who is ...and who makes it all possible.
As difficult as that may sound, and I know I'm not doing justice, nor glorifying the love as accurate as it is ...the appreciation of it, is basically what I believe is integral to it. And that integral component is called ...choice.
Since God is love, it is inevitable that He would choose to spread Himself beyond Himself ...but, with Him, that is not called choice, as it is just Him.
Choice is in the possibility that we may choose not to do it ...and with God, He was just going to do it ...it was not a possibility, it just was.
Yet, when we perchance choose not to do what love would have us do ...we are in violation of that love, or oppose it. Then love becomes not its whole, but a direction towards less ...and often a progression with a continuance or reoccurring occasion of that less, without often less of the energy or knowledge or motivation to change the direction to obtain more.
Many people like the word repentance, and practice it little ...and many others don't like the word because they don't understand the deepest of all love, that which is at the center of it ...forgiveness. And they also have difficulty practicing it ...as what often appears as a wounded pride, is a spirit weakened by comparison, competing for a love that is attainable by all of us.
Much of the problem is from trying to understand love in this comparison form, instead of finding it in its deepest sense. A person may feel tall if he is the tallest one in his family ...but, he may not feel so tall, if he is with a bunch of basketball players. And finding love may be a tall order if you are forever locked into the appreciative stage, and never experiencing the difficult, yet, glorious encore of repeated forgiveness.
If love becomes less, it could become progressively less ...all to easily. And if the progression continues, it could all too soon become not love at all. Yet, the critical stage of it ...is what truly defines it. Our choice to change directions ...is how we view repentance, either in a good light, or in a bad light. Repentance is changing ---to first realize what we had not realized, and then to change our choice ---to choose a pathway to love.
Love survives and grows to its greatest capacity when it is violated or opposed. That is because forgiveness is the greatest aspect of love. We can only tap into the beginnings of it ...by realizing that we could never forgive, if not for learning of it and experiencing it ...from God.
Only then does it become more than words ...words that aren't just spoken out of mouths of proper training, but from the heart of God. We can only begin to understand how to forgive others ...when we realize we forgive only because we see how God loves others, how He loves us.
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