Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Who's Doing the Loving?
Ah, Lu, you've done it again! How can we be so far apart while still being in such close synch?
Saturday night I was wandering around in Until Uru, the online version of Cyan's computer game "Uru." Andrew, another member, has set up a neighborhood in the city of D'ni for the Uru Christian Fellowship. This is an experiment and hasn't really started, but after I logged in I noticed Andrew was there so I linked in to visit.
We chatted for a time, standing amid the colored lights by the fountain on the plaza, and then went to play a couple of games of Heek. It's a game that, like tic-tac-toe, is good for about two rounds and then it's over with.
About the time we were done, another friend logged in. I sent her a message telling her where we were--she'd expressed interest in the UCF before--and invited her to come and visit. She did. We started to chat, and then Andrew had to leave because of heavy homework. He lives in Australia and we were into his prime study time.
He left, and two more people came in. One I knew pretty well, and the other I'd met briefly once before. We sat down by the fountain, and proceeded to talk about mistakes. We moved on to talk about God. One of them expected judgment because he didn't believe in God, but we told him that that didn't matter. God loved him no matter what he believed, and would work with him if allowed.
The evening gradually took on a sort of glow. As we talked of God, I was trying to show that God loved this man and that human love couldn't touch God's. He asked, though, who was loving him. God, or the person? He wanted the person's love, not God's.
At first this made no sense to me. I'd a lot rather have God's love than anyone else's He's the only person who doesn't disappoint, who doesn't just flake out when things get sticky. He doesn't yell, and is always helping me learn his ways.
Here was someone wanting a person's love rather than God's. I tried looking at it from his viewpoint and couldn't do it. But the other woman kept pouring out her love to him in a way that was so obvious it even came out through this modern computer communication, which is supposed to be so cold and distant. "I love you," she said, "I myself."
Well, that really threw me. There is no love in me. If someone wants me to love them, they're going to have to get God's love at second hand. I thought that's the way this thing works.
That's radical enough, but what God really wants is even more radical: he wants me to be like that woman. He wants me to be so suffused with his love that people on the outside can't tell whose love it is.
So, I join Lu in her hopeless dependence upon Jesus. If he wants this kind of loving to happen, he'll have to do it. I'll burn myself out like a locomotive trying to climb a 20% grade pulling a mile-long train. Forget it. I have no idea how he will do it, but my main job is to stay out of his way. The best way to move forward is to quit holding onto the past.
Saturday night I was wandering around in Until Uru, the online version of Cyan's computer game "Uru." Andrew, another member, has set up a neighborhood in the city of D'ni for the Uru Christian Fellowship. This is an experiment and hasn't really started, but after I logged in I noticed Andrew was there so I linked in to visit.
We chatted for a time, standing amid the colored lights by the fountain on the plaza, and then went to play a couple of games of Heek. It's a game that, like tic-tac-toe, is good for about two rounds and then it's over with.
About the time we were done, another friend logged in. I sent her a message telling her where we were--she'd expressed interest in the UCF before--and invited her to come and visit. She did. We started to chat, and then Andrew had to leave because of heavy homework. He lives in Australia and we were into his prime study time.
He left, and two more people came in. One I knew pretty well, and the other I'd met briefly once before. We sat down by the fountain, and proceeded to talk about mistakes. We moved on to talk about God. One of them expected judgment because he didn't believe in God, but we told him that that didn't matter. God loved him no matter what he believed, and would work with him if allowed.
The evening gradually took on a sort of glow. As we talked of God, I was trying to show that God loved this man and that human love couldn't touch God's. He asked, though, who was loving him. God, or the person? He wanted the person's love, not God's.
At first this made no sense to me. I'd a lot rather have God's love than anyone else's He's the only person who doesn't disappoint, who doesn't just flake out when things get sticky. He doesn't yell, and is always helping me learn his ways.
Here was someone wanting a person's love rather than God's. I tried looking at it from his viewpoint and couldn't do it. But the other woman kept pouring out her love to him in a way that was so obvious it even came out through this modern computer communication, which is supposed to be so cold and distant. "I love you," she said, "I myself."
Well, that really threw me. There is no love in me. If someone wants me to love them, they're going to have to get God's love at second hand. I thought that's the way this thing works.
That's radical enough, but what God really wants is even more radical: he wants me to be like that woman. He wants me to be so suffused with his love that people on the outside can't tell whose love it is.
So, I join Lu in her hopeless dependence upon Jesus. If he wants this kind of loving to happen, he'll have to do it. I'll burn myself out like a locomotive trying to climb a 20% grade pulling a mile-long train. Forget it. I have no idea how he will do it, but my main job is to stay out of his way. The best way to move forward is to quit holding onto the past.
# posted by Larry @ 14:26 
