Something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about recently came out of the third (I think) chapter of Lewis’s Problem of Pain. When describing God’s relationship to humans, he uses a couple of different analogies. Two that stuck out in my mind were the one about the owner and dog and the husband and wife example. However, I’m having a little trouble finding either one of them very true. I don’t doubt the "unlovableness" of humankind, but the idea that God wants to put character-building experiences in our lives to make us more loveable so that He can love us seems slightly uncharacteristic of love. Perhaps the rules are different when it comes to God and how he loves. God can be jealous, possessive, etc. I’m just not sure that selfish is one of the options, but I could be very wrong. I don’t pretend to know anything about marriage, but I wouldn’t approve of someone going into a marriage with the plan to change their spouse so that they could love them. Besides being incredibly counterintuitive, I just can’t bring myself to believe that God’s love is so purely self-serving. And yet, who else is there to serve? I’m just not sure that’s the characteristic of love that I’d like to emphasize in anyway, but especially not when speaking of perfect love.
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