God And

In the natural order of things, people are effect-driven.

I typically do things because there is an effect that I want for myself, and I can achieve the effect by some particular action. This could be thought of as the "engineering model," and it is the backbone of all high-level human activity. We are continuously "engineering" our experiences.

In the natural way of thinking, to do something without some target effect would mean to do it arbitrarily, which is equated with foolishness, or worse.

If I were to drive for four hours, and I did not particularly want to drive, nor did I have to drive, nor was I going anywhere in particular, that would be considered foolishness, or maybe some indication of illness.

So then, in the natural way of things, I seek the effect of things but never really seek things themselves.

This must change with God. I must not seek "God and..." some effect, but must be content in seeking God Himself - the true thing.

This may seem at first to be about reverence - about "showing" that our interest is God, and not just what He can do for us. While this is a noble mindset to have, this is not the point of the argument (nor do I think it is very useful anyway): The restraint here is for our own good:

If I seek God in prayer because I know that praying will produce a certain effect in me - say, peace, or the social comfort of having interacted with God, then I will pray until I have the effect, and will likely not continue much further. The "engineering" compulsion will evaluate the usefulness of further prayer, and will find nothing concrete, because I have no "want" to wait upon. At best, I might "want" to feel more loving, and less selfish, and that becomes my reason to continue. It is still about the effect.

If I worship God in the hope of achieving the pleasant effect of sensing His presence, or of being pleasantly distracted, or of a thousand other good things, I will likewise restrict both myself and God to a relationship which is pre-defined according to what I am really seeking, which is not actually Him.

However, where I seek God Himself, I will find that I am free from "the engineer." In having no pre-defined reason to come to God except to seek Him, I am free from this ironic state: where, because I have found God in experience, I am now content to end my pursuit and experience Him no further (until I want to). The better way is that when I have found God in experience, I perpetually wish to experience Him further. This ideal could never be "want" driven, but is sensible only to relational desire - where love for God Himself takes place of that more mechanical compulsion to find some effect from Him.

When we seek God, as opposed to "God and...," we are truly free to know the love of God, and our hearts are truly ready for the relationship of love that is always pressing at the seams of our natural order, waiting to ensue.

We could say that the natural way is to be effect-driven, but the love of God will make us affection-driven.

Our agenda with God is what holds off our relationship with Him, because it defines our use of Him. If our "use of Him" is He Himself, then our pursuit of God is bound only by His idea of the relationship, which is far more impressive than what we would come up with on our own.

It is in our best interest, and is the only way unto love, that we abandon "satisfaction." We must not be satisfied, or else we will stop short of God's desire for us. And I do not mean "God's desire for us" in the sense of "things that He would like to do for us," or of the like: I mean His possessive desire for "us, ourselves," that yearns that we would desire Him, Himself. When we stop wanting God, Himself, the relationship can grow no more.

We must seek God for the shear wild adventure of being near to His heart. We must seek God to have the pleasure of His love and blessings, but without finding any one object of pleasure at which we are willing to walk away without another.

The adventure of Christianity takes place with a Person, and God forbid we should want anything less.