God is a no longer God.
In this faith journey in which we have engaged and set upon our hearts a sincere desire to know God, to ask of Him and to receive from Him what He wishes us to know about Him and ourself, such exacts a solemnity from us we are at times unwilling to give. But giving to Him is what we must do. God has not demanded we owe Him, but we do owe Him. And this is the place we must come in this journey, not an end, but a beginning.
Presumptuous though it may be, much of this journey is to understand who God is, to understand His relationship with us. I use the word “with” instead of “to” because this relationship we seek with the Almighty is not objectifiable. We are not in a comparison as separate entities are often discussed, nor some mathematical formula. We are intimately entwined with our Creator, His spirit, and His truth. If faith is true, to this we must give Him, the daily conversation joy and delight compel us to give to One who truly loves us for who we are, not what we do.
And if I have come to this place, what do I owe Him? It is much like the changes a person makes following some health scare. No longer does he wish to engage in dietary habits consistent with his poor health. No longer does he want hamburgers, French fries, pizza, jamoca almond fudge sundaes, or fried chicken with rice and skillet gravy. Only does he desire to feed himself with what will make him better.
When full faith arrives in our awakening to God and who He is, no longer do we wish to deal with our neighbor in a manner where we desire to do unto them some harm they did to us, to do unto them before they can harm us again. If such a desire wells within us, we must with all recognition ask God to remove it from us. Self-evident in God’s character is His calling for us to possess as our first response a mercy eliciting love for the offender, the lost, the least.
In God, we can rest. Rest allows us to receive, to listen and hear, to lay down our striving and allow God to give of Himself, to know He loves us for who we are. And who are we? We are His creation, which He saw and said it was good. And though we went our own way, there is available a way back, a means to become, to be affirmed and called “sons of God.” This is the journey. Resting stills us long enough to realize God does love us, calls us to full faith and joyful obedience, to give to Him our thanks and praise, to find our worth in Him and not in this world.
If we ask how, we are not resting, we are not listening, we are not seeking Him. There is no how. There is just no longer.