God's Ridiculous Love

In chapter VI (Human Pain), Lewis writes of three functions of pain. One function is to turn our thoughts toward God, to remind us that we need Him. Pain allows us to see that the happiness we have without Him is a "false happiness." No matter how successful or well-adjusted or respectable a person seems to be, any happiness they have without God is not the truly human life that we were created to experience. Lewis tip-toes through the explanation that God "troubles" these seemingly happy people in order for them to realize how much they are missing in Him; "He makes that [their happy life with their families] less sweet to them" (85 in my book). Lewis goes on to say that God accepts people coming to Himself even for the most selfish or potentially insulting reasons: This is what I would like to focus on.

It's beautiful to me that God would accept us often vile, selfish, arrogant creatures at the risk of his own respectability. Why do people often come to God? As a last resort, to avoid hell, to have some moral structure to their lives, because that's what they've been taught to do. Often, even in our class, we've discussed coming to God and Christianity as if it was assumed that the point of all this is to avoid hell--nobody wants to experience all that weeping and gnashing of teeth. But even this God accepts. Using the marriage metaphor, I know that I wouldn't want someone to marry me simply to avoid some kind of pain or because his family wanted him to or just because he wanted to be married. All of these I would find insulting or even dehumanizing--like he is treating me as a means to an end. I want him to love me, not because he is being forced by fear or circumstances but because he wants to. How often do we do this with God? "God, I'll love You if You give me this and this and this. I'll come to You if You can somehow keep me from burning eternally." And yet, even through this weak and selfish plea, God accepts us and loves us. He just wants us, even if it seems to cost Him his dignity, even if we (as we usually do) treat Him as so much less than He deserves. What great love! What great mercy! What great grace!

Let us be careful to remember that the point of Christianity is not simply to avoid hell (the fire and brimstone kind), but to know, love, and be loved by the God who created us. Jesus praying: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" (John 17: 3).