From Jim McGuiggan... Does God's Heart Break?

Does God's Heart Break?

I have some grasp of the truth that God is "other" than we though I know I'm a long way behind others in understanding it. I know we're not to waste our time pitying God he doesn't need our pity. I know we can grieve him (for the Bible says so) but I'm unsure how far I'm to take that and I know he rejoices over us. I'm not sure how "human" God is but I do recall Jesus paralleling his Father's response to a loving human father and I remember (in the Old Testament) that God likens himself to a mother, a father and a husband. Somewhere in all this I think we're supposed to acknowledge that God and we are alike (there's room in here for discussion on "the image of God," isn't there?).

I recall the protest of John Stuart Mill against religious double-talk that included saying God was "good" but then insisted that "good" doesn't mean relative to God what it means when we use it of people. Granted that we need to be careful and that the word "good" might be used of some things that a closer examination shows aren't good. Granted that, Mill was certainly right to say that he would not call God "good" if it didn't mean what it normally meant when it was used of a good woman or man. For why would we praise God for being "good" if good has no real meaning? Mill (perhaps a bit pompously) went on to say that if he is sent to hell for that, "then to hell I will go."
With all of that and my uncertainty as background, I can't help thinking God must be the greatest sufferer in the universe.

Two people spoke to each other in whispers, pouring out their hearts to each other, in all sincerity, telling one another that the day began with thoughts of each other and ended the same way. They committed themselves to one another for all their lives, wrapped their souls around each other so that it became hard to tell where one began and the other ended and their first thought when they opened theirs eyes in the morning was that he or she was in the world so whatever happened at least they'd experience it together. Then he (or she) began to change until he (or she) became a perfect stranger! And in all the agony of the agony what especially grieves the one still in love is this: the other thinks this is a lovely world without them. How can it be? How can it be that now she might as well not exist? How can he smile, rejoice, sing, eat with pleasure, spend time with others in familiar places without a thought of her? How can it be that any thought of her causes no emotional ripple and that the sight of her prompts only a casual nod (and the more agonizing precisely because it is casual)?

Will she get over it? Should she get over it? Those are not my concern at this moment. Is the pain deep? Has the soul been shredded? Has the heart been broken? And, my real question: Does God, whose love is infinitely purer and deeper, experience anything like that?

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.