GOD SEEKS

“While man is not seeking God, God is seeking man.

C.S. Lewis, the great British author and theologian, was once an atheist. He couldn’t stand the thought of being a Christian. One day he came face-to face with his Creator:

You must picture me alone in that room in Oxford University night after night feeling whenever my mind drifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me.

Lewis accepted Christ that night in 1929. In retrospect, recalling his own attitude about giving in to the God who had pursued him so relentlessly, he arrived at a deeper understanding of God’s nature:

I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing, the divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The prodigal son at least walked home on his feet, but who can duly adore that love which will open the high gates to a prodigal son who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape. The words compel them to come in have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them, but more properly understood they plumb the depth of the divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and his compulsion is our liberation.

Our loving God hounded this man, an atheist who didn’t want anything to do with God. Lewis couldn’t escape from the magnetic pull of God’s love… Even today God comes after man, asking, “Where art thou?”