Ravished by God

Thursday 3/8/18 3:28 AM

There is much talk in today’s society about sexual harassment in the form of unwanted attention. Numerous famous men in positions of power or in the public eye have recently been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior and have either been fired or have resigned their positions. There are also those have been accused of date rape, where a woman was either given some sort of drug or perhaps had passed out from drinking too much alcohol and then raped while they were unconscious. I have never understood that type of behavior but this morning I wondered about if that is the way I think about intimacy with God. I want to experience the full extent of his love while doing nothing at all to nurture an intimate relationship with him.

My psalm this week is Psalm 65. It describes how God cares for me by providing forgiveness for my sin, by harnessing the power of nature so it does not overwhelm me, and by providing for my physical needs with an abundance of nourishing food. This loving and caring God desires a relationship with me, but he doesn’t force himself upon me. Rather, he invites me to have a conversation with him through prayer and the reading of scripture. It seems that, to some extent, I can choose the intensity of the relationship by the amount of effort I put into getting to know God.

In his book My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers writes, “When a man is born from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve that life or nourish it. Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished.” In his book Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner mentions that, when speaking of God, John Donne wrote, “Ravish my heart.” Buechner then responds, “But God will not usually ravish. He will only court.”

I think I am a bit like Donne. I want to have an intimate relationship with God, one in which I experience the full extent of God’s love. The truth of the matter is that I am often unwilling to put in the necessary time and effort required of an intimate relationship. God invites me into an intimate relationship, but he will not force himself upon me. He wants a willing partner, not one who is unconscious.