LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
God's Love
How is God's love for man? According to C.S. Lewis, it is impossible to describe it; only through some analogies will it be possible to extract some notion of this love.
The most basic of them all is the love of an artist for his creation. Like in Jeremiah's vision of the potter and the clay, we are a heavenly artwork, but a piece of art in which he won't be satisfied until he accomplishes a certain character. God takes great pains with man(and causes him pain too) because he is his masterpiece. If it were a simple sketch, he wouldn't have made such a big investment.
Another metaphor is the love of a man for his animal. According to the analogy in the scriptures that show God as the shepherd and man as his sheep, man invests time in the domestication of his animal to make him more loved than in his wild state. The animal suffers while being domesticated, but once the process is completed, the end is infinitely better than the beginning. Finally, the master is pleased with in the domesticated animal since he has made him deserving of his love.
A more noble analogy is that of a father for his son. This analogy perfectly represented in the Father and his son Jesus Christ, essentially mean authoritarian love on one side and obedient love on the other. The father uses his authority to make his Son the type of human being he wants him to be.
Finally, we come upon an analogy full of risks but that is the most useful: the love of a man for a woman. In the scriptures, it is Israel whom her lover found abandoned at the side of the road; and it is also the Church whom the Lord loves so much that he does not tolerate in her stain or wrinkle. This analogy stresses that love, by its very nature, demands the perfection of the loved one; that the mere benevolence that endures anything, except your suffering, is the polar opposite of love. When we fall in love with a woman, does it no longer matter that she is clean or dirty, pure or corrupt? Does it not happen instead that it is at that time that it begins to matter to us?
When Christianity affirms that God loves man, it means that God loves man: not that he has some distant interest for his well being, but that in reality we are the object of his love. The love that made the worlds is persistent like the love of an artist for his work, and strict as the love of a man for his favorite pet; proactive and venerable as the love of a father for his son; jealous, relentless, demanding, as the love between the sexes.
It surpasses reason to try and explain why creatures like us could have such a valuable worth to the eyes of his Creator. It is undoubtedly a weight of glory that exceeds our merits. If we see this, we will understand the problem of pain in Christians.