Let's keep listening to this "damned" stuff - more from William Willimon.
And yet the God who loves us has made us as those who are able to turn aside from God's move toward us, those who are able to refuse God's outstretched hand. I am reluctant to call such stupid refusal an aspect of God-given freedom, for it hardly seems "free" to reject whom God created you to be. How odd that the creature who is created to be with the Creator is (in the words of the old hymn) "prone to wander." Something in us finds it quite attractive at last to be where God is silenced, and we are free at last to be as we damn well please. C.S. Lewis said that, in hell, the door is locked from the inside.
We are really given quite some "room" in which to run. Free to go here and there and to say "yes" and say "no." If creation was up to us, I'm sure we would fix it in such a way to let us direct things as we would want them to be. It is not easy to lift up our eyes and follow the one who bids us to rest and live boldly without being coerced into one way of living. We are free to live "as we damn well please." Unfortunately, we miss out on the gift that carries our burdens from us and promises to make our lives full of new adventures that make us fully human because we are not restricted from being fully human.
Connection: When the door is locked from the inside, how long does it take you to realize that that is the case in your life?
Precious Lord, you continue to abide with us and we continue to turn aside and look for something more like we would want the world to be. In the midst of turning, you stay within our sight and keep speaking a word of love and forgiveness that becomes the way you draw us to yourself. Continue to walk with us and show us your ways. Amen.
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