Is God Loving: An Addendum

I have recently been reading a wonderful book by author Elizabeth Goudge, titled “The White Witch.” The main character, named Froniga, finds herself in an encounter with evil, an evil stronger than herself. In her terror, she first reasons with herself to call upon God, but then concludes (in her pride, I might add)... “I have not done so in the days of my security, and why should I insult Him by doing so in my danger? I will let go in my own strength or not at all... but I can’t.” In this terrible moment, Froniga is visited by the remembrance of three people, and in that moment, she is delivered. I’ll pick up the story there:

"My soul is escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler; for the snare is broken and I am delivered." Once out of sight of the cottage she picked up her skirts and ran up the lane to the parting of the ways, and then along the path through the fields that led to Flowercote Wood. She did not stop running until the trees of that happy place had closed in safety around her. Then she sat down upon a fallen tree trunk and began to laugh and cry together. She laughed because she, Froniga Haslewood, had run away for the first time in her life. She cried for her sister [given over to evil]. And she laughed and cried together from sheer relief. "The snare is broken and I am delivered.”

"But not by my own strength, she acknowledged, "for she was stronger than I. And not by the grace of God, for I did not call upon Him." By what then? By remembrance of the three clearest spirits whom she knew, Jenny, Yoben and Parson Hawthyn. And what is a clear spirit but a channel of the grace of God? She sat still digesting this fact, and there began to come to her a first dim realization of God's humility. Rejected by the proud in His own right, by what humble means He chose to succor them; through the spirit of a child, a poor gypsy or an old man, by a song perhaps, or even it might be by the fall of a leaf or the scent of a flower. For His infinite and humble patience nothing was too small to advance His purpose of salvation, and eternity was not too long for its accomplishment. 

As I read this passage, I thought of the question I referenced last month: Is God loving? 

Froniga’s insight is, I think, profound. The God of the universe, who, as John the Beloved tells us “is love,” is also humble. In love, God pursues his creation for the purpose of saving and healing, but often his creatures (us), in our arrogance and pride, will not look to Him for help, and will not trust Him for our good. But as Froniga began to realize, with what humility God moves toward us in love: “Rejected by the proud in His own right, by what humble means He chose to succor them; through the spirit of a child, a poor gypsy or an old man, by a song perhaps, or even it might be by the fall of a leaf or the scent of a flower.” 

It’s certainly not out of the question that we, in our pride, have refused God. It’s also quite possibly true that in our desire to be loved by God, we often demand an un-mediated experience of God. But in reality (and the Scriptures themselves testify to this), nearly every form of contact with God is mediated by creation in some way: a burning bush, a pillar of cloud, an angel, a wind, another human, the sound of silence…There is nothing so small that God will not use it as a “channel of grace” for us.

So instead of insisting that God would love us in the ways we desire or require, maybe a better posture would be to ask - God, how are you loving me today? What has been a channel of grace to me? It might be a simple act of kindness, or a flaming maple leaf, a bird song, or a sip of coffee. It’s likely someone showing up in your life offering kindness, goodness, beauty or truth. 

There is certainly much more we could say about the love of God. Jesus is, after all, the image of the God who is love, and we haven’t even talked specifically about him! But maybe God is more humble than we have considered, and is more staggeringly willing to love us than we have imagined. I would urge you: Keep your eyes open, and your heart attentive to the channels of grace God has directed to you today. You are loved.