Sometimes a good quote just sums it up

I found this in the intro. pages of "The Divine Conspiracy."
It's a quote from Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" - so the perspective is inverted and the insight comes from a demon's analysis and criticism of his Enemy's strategy and methods.

"You must have wondered why the Enemy (God) does not make more use of his power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree he chooses and at any moment.
But you now see that the irresistable and the indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of his scheme forbids him to use.
Merely to over-ride a human will (as his felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for him useless.
He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For his ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve . . . Sooner or later he withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish . . .He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we tempt to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away his hand. . . our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
- Uncle Screwtape

In other words:
Why doesn't God show himself plainly? Why doesn't He "prove" himself beyond all doubt? God is "holding back." His Love demands our freedom, and without a choice to believe we would not be free. The autonomy and self determination we were created with and which reflect God's image are attributes which God refuses to over-rule. His purpose is that we develop our individual will, and yet subordinate it to His authority. The greatest test of this, and the surest way to frustrate the devil, is to bend our will to follow him in the absence of any apparent rewards.

In my experience:
Satan tells us that our efforts are futile and that following God is not worth it.
We often believe his lies and begin to think that there is no good reason to obey.
But then we stubbornly continue to walk in faith and obey anyway.
And God is pleased.

Cross references:
Rich Mullins says "You're up there just playing hard to get."
Jacques Ellul says: Verbal truth does not come to us in the same way as visual reality. A propositional truth-claim always asks us to make a judgement; is it true or false, will I accept or reject this assertion? God reveals Himself in verbal truth out of respect for our freedom to choose.
Philip Yancey says: God is holding back. He does this for our own good.

- Matt Lundquist

Too late to stay up, Too early to get up

It's almost 1 a.m. and I'm not quite ready to sleep. As much as I love sleep, I must admit it is a bit overrated. Rest, repose, restoration, relaxation and recreation even, but sleep? It's sooooo passive. Almost like it's not really something you do, but something that happens to you. Or perhaps it's something you don't do.
Like when people ask, "Are you growing a beard?"
"No, I'm just not shaving."

"Are you sleeping?"
"No, I'm just not awake."

Why are there different modes of awakeness? Is consciousness always aware? What if there's less to be aware of? (Like at 1 a.m. when all is quiet in my house.)
Funny thing - I feel more aware when there's less going on.

I remember meeting this guy who had ridden a horse coast to coast, from Lincoln City to Atlantic City. He said that it tool a few days before his mind stopped running through all kinds of thoughts, tumbling its contents around. He said somewhere out in Wyoming he began to be completely in the now, in the moment. All he was aware of at that time was the rhythm of the horse, the heat rising off the road, an occasional lizard crossing his path.

That spoke to me. I wanted to be like that. Rich Mullins says that living "in time" means that we cannot see what's ahead and cannot get free from what we've left behind. I just want to be, to live as a human being, not a human "doing."

Campolo refers to "Now" as the non-existent point (a point has no duration) which separates the past from the future. Yet now is the only part of time we have direct experience of. The past is a memory, the future is a vision, we have only the "eternal now." Eternal because it offers us a window into timelessness. We share a moment, perhaps an "I-Thou" moment, and it doesn't matter how long or short. There is a connection in the now and in our conscious experience. It didn't "happen" in time and yet no one can take it away from us and nothing is more certain than our apprehension of another being and what we have shared.

In sleep we are not aware of the passage of time. But this is no excape. To be aware yet not "in time" is an acquired skill. We can waste time, spend time, lose time and find time, but can we set it aside, knowing it will be there? To rest, to restore, to relax and re-create involve taking time, perhaps even making time, just for being.

Here I am, ready to sleep, staying awake.
Body at rest, mind still up, searching cerebral space.
Ideas find places, feelings find words.
Pace slowly slackens, pulse remains regular.
Breath falls and rises, eyes calmly close.
Last thing to stop moving through mental landscapes . . .
is a vehicle called thought.
Until tomorrow.