c. scott andreas

note: this is part two of a three-part series

Yesterday, I introduced a three-part thought. Part one focused on the trouble and frustration created between individuals as a result of mistrust, the problem of creating ourselves within each other, and social communication.

This is part two, in which I apply the concepts I posited with regard to human relationships to a relationship with the Divine.

I believe that this way of thinking also has a profound meaning within the context of faith and God. Many believe that the afterlife is the fulfillment of this dream of perfect communication.

In praying to God, we build our relationship with Him. In reading His Word, we let Him build His relationship with us. To apply the alternate metaphor, when we pray to God, we create ourselves in Him; when we read the Word of God, He creates Himself within us.

The same problem of “perfect communication� among each other also applies to our relationship with God. Just as it is undesirable to relate with others we perceive as unlikable or simply unlike us, God faces the question of whether or not it is desirable to relate with us. By speaking to us through His Word, He openly accepts all of the risks involved in a creating a relationship – in speaking to us, He creates Himself within us. He walks the streets of our minds, filled with danger and sin, without fear. He offers to live within us. In exchange, He offers to allow us to create ourselves and live within Him. We are free to pray to Him – to create ourselves within Him and walk the pure streets of gold without fear.

When we create and define the metaphor that is our life within Him, we are able to discover who we really are – in our relationships with others, we are unable to do this because perfect intimacy is both impossible and undesirable. But with God, we are free, even encouraged, to explore and define ourselves free from fear and inhibition.

This, then, begs the question of how deep of a relationship is possible on earth.

A passage to ponder…

Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

-Genesis 2:22-24 (Zondervan/NIV)

look for part three tomorrow