How Humble Your Love

This morning in church we sang a song whose chorus says:

What a wonderful Maker,
What a wonderful Savior.
How majestic Your whispers,
How humble Your love.
With a strength like no other
And the heart of a Father,
How majestic Your whispers.
What a wonderful God.

I know the song well, but this morning I was struck by the line that says "How humble Your love," and I thought about what it meant that God's love is humble. I think it means that He isn't forceful or assuming with His love, but that He just gives it and leaves us the freedom to accept it or not. This reminded me of a quote from C.S. Lews in Chapter 8 of The Screwtape Letters, which I actually blogged about here a couple years ago. In it, the demon Screwtape writes this about God:

You must have often 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 Irresistible 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.

He cannot ravish. He can only woo. How sweet to think that God woos me, longing for me to CHOOSE Him and not just come to Him out of compulsion.

I also received great encouragement in continuing to read this chapter where Screwtape says this:

Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those 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. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best... ...He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but 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.

Wow, this perfectly describes the valley I have been walking through and continue to walk, and I am thankful for this brief glimpse of the heart of God, through which I feel Him saying to me, "I see your struggles, I know your heart, and I am deeply moved by your perseverance in faith, no matter how shaky at times. I am still here, my beloved one." Thank You, Lord.