Sometimes I wish God would just come and smack me upside the head and say, "No, you idiot, this way!" I'm tempted to think that life would be so much easier that way. If I'm walking over the brink, off the beaten path, and wallowing once again in putrecence and slime, I almost wish that I wasn't capable of such devious and dangerous deeds. That He would prevent me from getting my feet even a little wet, but that's sort of a difficult thing, to make such accusations. I've so many scars, so many wounds, not from battle, for those I would wear with pride and joy for my Lord's glory and honor, but from shortcomings, stupidity, falsity, laziness, all of my own accord. An accord with evil.

I am the only one who can save my soul (in a manner of writing), I know that. Wouldn't it have been easier to be saved by God immediately, with his intervention every time I approached the brink of deceit? Sure. It would have been easy. Too easy. So easy there would have been no merrit in it at all. If I were not responsible for my own deeds and missteps, I would not have really existed as something desirable in His eyes.

And if I were that way, it wouldn't even come into my head that I was desirable or repugnant to him. I wouldn't even be enough of an individual to have a notion of emotions or feelings, let alone the thoughts and feelings of others. I would not be able to love, if I did not have free will. Could I be loved? Yes, but only as much as one could love an animal, perhaps even less, because I would be totally without empathy. Worse off than a dog.

The quality of choice, of the ability to choose, of the will to prefer one thing to another: I tend not to look at it as a gift. I allow myself (therefore choose) to let lonliness, fatigue, sodness, and anger take over my thoughts. It is truly a merciful and loving God that gives me choices, the ability to choose wrongly and to frustrate his plan. And yet He always welcomes a change toward him. He does not demand me, but asks for me, myself, my whole me-ness. Makes me want to cry, cause I know I'll forget it soon enough, or not care, and choose wrongly. It is a painstaking and rigerous process, isn't it Lord? Back and forth, back and forth, to and fro...like a ship on the waves....or more appropriately like a ping-pong ball in action. Why does He let me continue to muddle about?

If a lover truly loved his beloved, would he want to control her every thought and deed towards him? Make her kiss him and carress him because he wants her to, not because she wants to do so? I think not. What kind of satisfaction is there in that? The beloved is not showing him her love. as a matter of fact, she is not showing him anything. It is only satisfactory for one's beloved to love of her own accord, to love because she wills it. If she chooses not to love, even that is better than forcing her to do so. If she loves against her will, hating every minute of it, every touch, than that is hell. True lovers choose their love and desire communion with the beloved on every level, a totality.

"I am my beloved's and he is mine. His banner over me is love."
"O come my beloved, come. O Heart of my Heart, my own. Come my beloved, come I am weary, waiting for thee alone."