Offended by God
If you desire intimate union with God you must be willing to pay the price for it. The price is small enough. In fact, it is not even a price at all: it only seems to be so with us. We find it difficult to give up our desire for things that can never satisfy us in order to purchase the One Good in Whom is all our joy - and in Whom, moreover, we get back everything else that we have renounced besides!
The fact remains that contemplation will not be given to those who willfully remain at a distance from God, who confine their interior life to a few routine exercises of piety and a few external acts of worship and service performed as a matter of duty. Such people are careful to avoid sin. They respect God as a Master. But their heart does not belong to Him.
- Thomas Merton –
I am in a rare moment of silence. The time of prayerlessness has ended...or has it? This quote has stung me. Like a bee. What’s interesting about this quote is that this topic it is exactly what I was listening to the other day on my way to work. Funny how God works those things out isn’t it?
I bought a Bible study and accompanying audio CDs. The speaker was talking about how we often times are “offended” by God when He doesn’t obey – when He doesn’t do what we think He should. When we are offended, we withhold our hearts from God. Some fall away from church...but many stay right where they are “supposed” to be. We continue to go to church or Bible study but we have removed ourselves from God, withholding our hearts from anything He has to say.
Thomas Merton came to the same conclusion many years ago. His assertion that those like I’ve described respect God but they do not belong to Him is unsettling.
But I do belong to Him! I’ve accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. I go to church. I teach my kids about Jesus, God and the power of the Holy Spirit. But what does it say about me that I have drawn back?
Why am I stuck in a perpetual cycle of prayerlessness-surrender-prayer? Merton says if I desire that union with God, I have to give up my desires. Period. Nothing else will do. If I desire anything more, I wind up being offended. So I must return to Him, open my heart and allow Him to peel back the layers of self-centeredness, self-reliance, selfishness, and all that goes on with it. As He peels back the layers, I am assaulted by the ugliness of it all.
This realization won’t prevent me from being “offended” but it may help in identifying it before it’s too late.
The fact remains that contemplation will not be given to those who willfully remain at a distance from God, who confine their interior life to a few routine exercises of piety and a few external acts of worship and service performed as a matter of duty. Such people are careful to avoid sin. They respect God as a Master. But their heart does not belong to Him.
- Thomas Merton –
I am in a rare moment of silence. The time of prayerlessness has ended...or has it? This quote has stung me. Like a bee. What’s interesting about this quote is that this topic it is exactly what I was listening to the other day on my way to work. Funny how God works those things out isn’t it?
I bought a Bible study and accompanying audio CDs. The speaker was talking about how we often times are “offended” by God when He doesn’t obey – when He doesn’t do what we think He should. When we are offended, we withhold our hearts from God. Some fall away from church...but many stay right where they are “supposed” to be. We continue to go to church or Bible study but we have removed ourselves from God, withholding our hearts from anything He has to say.
Thomas Merton came to the same conclusion many years ago. His assertion that those like I’ve described respect God but they do not belong to Him is unsettling.
But I do belong to Him! I’ve accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. I go to church. I teach my kids about Jesus, God and the power of the Holy Spirit. But what does it say about me that I have drawn back?
Why am I stuck in a perpetual cycle of prayerlessness-surrender-prayer? Merton says if I desire that union with God, I have to give up my desires. Period. Nothing else will do. If I desire anything more, I wind up being offended. So I must return to Him, open my heart and allow Him to peel back the layers of self-centeredness, self-reliance, selfishness, and all that goes on with it. As He peels back the layers, I am assaulted by the ugliness of it all.
This realization won’t prevent me from being “offended” but it may help in identifying it before it’s too late.
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