God wants us to want Him, not force us to

God wants us to pursue Him only if we want to. God never forces us to but helps us see the importance and necessity of our pursuit through our mistakes, failures, struggles, and pain, as well as our successes. 

Whenever we pursue things other than (or outside of) God, we find they leave us empty and create problems. 

They also causes us to feel distant from God, resulting in us missing and longing for more of his presence. This drives us to return and pursue Him more faithfully so we might experience him and his infinite love again more fully. 

As we partake of his presence, we long for it more and when it's absent, this increases our desire to avoid whatever alienates us from Him and creates a sense of His absence.

The saying goes that you can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink. While God never forces us to pursue him He knows the best way to help us see the need for him. To continue with the analogy, He doesn't make us drink but he does know how to salt our oats. 

We may not always know why we suffer or the specific benefit we will gain from it at that time - i.e. if we will ever see any immediate or long term circumstantial benefit, or gain anything at all in this life - but we know the general reason is so we might draw closer to and partake of Him more and who He is as the source of life, love, and all things. This may or may not result in a change of circumstances but it always results in a change of disposition. It brings us to a place of greater joy, contentment, and rest in Him.

We are told that "eye has not yet seen or ear yet heard..." what God has for us in eternity and what exactly being fully glorified and like Christ will look like. But this may be the primary reason we are given to encourage us ¹in our struggles i.e. to make us more Christlike. If and when we trust God, knowing this is sufficient.

The rub is what we gain eternally is often not obvious and has no immediate benefit to us now but a gain we have to accept by faith.    To us an analogy by Tim Keller, we don't have a video explanation of the value we receive from our struggles but an audio one. It is one we are given by words (promises) not by sight - at least not yet. Words we must believe but promises we have not actually seen firsthand with their own eyes or fully experienced. It is this very faith God is seeking to stretch and increase. So we do have some idea -- audio -- why we should remain faithful in our pursue of God but not the complete idea - video i.e. we are not yet face-to-face with Jesus.

Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." - John 20:29

It is our believing while not seeing that God is looking to stretch and expand. 

¹Actually there is another very significant reason for our suffering. It is so we will understand Christ's suffering on our behalf more fully.  The more we understand his suffering -- which usually doesn't occur until we go through our own -- the more we see His love and in turn grow in our love for him and what he did for us. For a further discussion on this click here. 

Another reason may simply be that we become more compassionate for the suffering of others which enables us to better love our neighbor as ourselves. This too is a present benefit.

But note, none of these benefits necessarily improve our circumstances but they do give us hope and enable us to persevere in our challenges with joy. 

What reveals our heart most

If we want to know the true condition of our heart two things reveal it better than anything; ¹great adversity and great success. 

Great adversity either humbles us or embitters us. Great success either makes us proud or grateful.

When you go through great adversity, how do you respond? Do you get angry and blame others or shake your fist at God? Or do you step back and reflect on how this too comes from God's hand for your good and seek to respond in a way that honors Him?

When you have a really good day (or season) where everything lines up circumstantially and everything you touch turns to gold, how do you respond? Do you start feeling and thinking that you are better than others or are you humbled that God has been good to you and cleared your path?

If you are inclined to feel anger during adversity or pride from success, what is the solution? It is actually the same for both; God's love. As we trust more and more in God's love and allow it to seep deep into our souls - whether in success or struggle - we are freed from trying to get love or affirmation elsewhere. We are not drawn away from God by the praise of men, because God's embrace means far more. 

We also question God's good intentions behind our hardships less. As our trust in God matures, we recognize more and more that the struggles and blessings of life are only from his wise and gracious hand. 

Great success or great suffering may darken our hearts or make us wiser and more humble, but they will never leave us where we were.

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¹what is the difference in these very different responses? Humility. Those who respond positively recognize all they are and have comes from their Creator. Those who don't, believe they are alone and must make life work on their own. No one is there to help them or cares about them more than they can or do.

The latter is a lonely path we are not designed to travel. We are created for relationship, but not just any relationship will do. Only one with the infinitely loving, wise and all powerful Creator,  who knows us better than we know ourselves. 

The essence of relationships

What is the essence of relationships?

All relationships consist of giving and receiving love (value).

However, different types of relationships occur in a variety of ways between various parties.

What makes them unique is the form or manner in which love and value are expressed or exchanged i.e. what kind of relationship it is and who are the persons with whom love and value are shared. Is it between God our Creator and His image bearers (you and I), husband and wife, parent and child, siblings, friends, extended family, business partners or associates, fellow believers, etc.?

Each kind of ¹relationship has unique characteristics the others do not have - i.e. a unique way of showing love and value - while also the same, in that they all show love and value in some form to the other person. 

For example, physical intimacy between a husband and wife is unique to that relationship. Love expressed in this way is only legitimately expressed between them and not others or other kinds of relationships.

Physical intimacy makes the marriage union the ²most complete human relationship. Marriage expresses giving and receiving love in all forms, e.g. friendship, companionship, partnership, physical intimacy, etc. - within this one relationship.

Each kind of relationship is valuable and designed by God to show us something about Him (and us) the others don't. The nature and vastness of God are too great to be fully displayed by any one kind of relationship alone.

How does God fit into all this? God himself is relationship as Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit and the basis for all relationships. All relationships reflect something of who He is, and what He is like.

Therefore, we find the most joy in relationships with persons other than God when we understand and recognize that ultimately they are all gifts from God designed to reveal something about who He is; and what He's like not only to us but to others. This adds to and aids our understanding of God and helps us appreciate Him more. This also adds greater fullness and meaning to all ³secondary relationships.

The highest form of love (and therefore relationship) is God's love. Why? It is the only love that does not require love to be given (or be offered to Him) in return. It is a kind of love that flows out of the fullness of who God is, not out of something needed or missing within God. It is unique and the highest kind of love. 

Because God ⁴is love, relationship is the "natural" - i.e. organic - outcome of who He is; a being of relationship between the Father and Son, in, by, and through the Spirit. 

This triune relationship has occurred from all eternity past. There has never been a time when God was not in a relationship of giving and receiving love. 

God never requires our love ⁵in order to give us His. His love is overflowing and sacrificial i.e. always giving (and receiving), never taking. And this is because He doesn't need our love, therefore neither requires it - at least not for His sake. 

One of the most well-known passages in scripture is "God so loved the world he gave... " What (who) He gave is not something trivial. He gave the most significant "thing" He could give - the only Son of his infinite affection. 

God's love only and always gives and never takes. Not because God doesn't want or enjoy our love in return, He simply doesn't need it (though it is always welcomed and delightfully received when given by us).

God is love and already fully experiences infinite and perfect love within the relationship of the Father and His Son in, by, and through the Spirit.

Though we occasionally show sacrificial love ourselves - often in "fits and starts" - God always operates this way. He always operates out of fullness, not need. He is always overflowing in love and always has from all eternity past between the Father and Son in and through the Spirit, long before we ever came into the picture.

" ...For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich." - 2 Cor 8:9

" ...because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!" - Eph 1:4-5

"...God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. - Rom 5:8‭-‬10

For related discussions the following links are offered:

Man...saint or sinner

Man's dilemma

God is relationship

AND

God is nonstop love beauty and glory

Is the wrath of God unfair? Click here.

Why are relationships important? Click here

The giving and receiving of glory/love click here.

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Footnotes:

¹Relationships are so much a necessary part of who we are that adults who choose to remain single will often have pets to be in a relation with another being - even if only on a simple and limited level with a pet. While pets are wonderful gifts from God and provide a kind of companionship, they come nowhere near the level of a God centered, vibrant, and healthy human relationship.

²Because of this form of love marriage is the only relationship that produces offspring i.e. Another bearer of God's image. This makes marriage the highest form of relationship - closest to the union of Father, Son, and Spirit - and why the fruit of its union - children - is sacred.

³The best marriage or best relationship between a child and parent or siblings is one that is exercised by the love and forgiveness of God.

⁴Love is central to or the core of God's being.

⁵The Father accepts and totally embraces Christ's love on our behalf i.e. as if it were our own love. 

God also poured out the consequences of our rejection of Him and His love, onto Christ, as if Christ rejected the Father. 

All this is offered and given as a gift when we place our trust in Christ and what He did on our behalf. 

The only question is do you believe and receive what Christ did for you? You will never experience the transforming benefit He offers to you otherwise.