Dance with Me

I recently asked some friends the other day in my Life Group a question.  I asked them if they only come to church one time a year for Easter and never come again, what is the one question that they would love to ask God.  The response was overwhelming.  There were all kinds of questions posed, but one stood out to me as profound.  One person asked, "How does and all powerful, all controlling God love?  I know, it sounds straight forward, but it really isn't.  Here is what I mean.  

When I was in the sixth grade, I liked this girl named Jenny (named changed to protect the innocent).  You know how it is when your in sixth grade... when it takes all the courage you can muster to ask a girl to dance with you.  So this was it, I was finally going to ask her to dance toward the end of the night because that's how long it took me to get up the nerve.  So, I say, "do you want to dance?" and she turns bright red and runs to her friends and I am left standing there looking and feeling very awkward.  I never got that dance, but I did gain something from that exchange.

When you love someone, you place the control of the relationship in their hands.  Love and control do not and cannot exist on the same plane.  The more you control something, the less you love it.  The more you love something, the less you control it.  When I asked Jenny to dance, I was giving her the control to say yes and accept the invitation, or to say no and reject the invitation.  This is how love works.

So back to the original question...How does and all powerful, all controlling God, Love?  I would argue that God had to give up control.  I know this answer will freak out a lot of people, but maybe, in God's power and sovereignty, He set it up in such a way that He can't make us love Him.  I don't mean that he won't, I mean that He can't.  Maybe the God of the universe, set the universe up in such a way, that he can give you your heart, but can't make it beat for Him.  He can give you feet to walk, but He can't keep them from walking away from Him.  

God can't make you love Him!  Because if He could, that wouldn't be love.  Love and Control cannot co-exist.  

I don't claim to fully understand the ways of God.  I think our lives are a constant journey toward discovering these things about our maker, and in the end, the deeper we go, the deeper he gets.  But, maybe that's the point.  Just like when we watch our kids find the eggs during an easter egg hunt, maybe He takes great pleasure in watching us discover new things about Him every day.  Yeah, I think we might be on to something.