gods can neither see, hear, nor speak...

I am reading Til We Have Faces again for the first time in a little over two or three years. Usually, I read and re-read a book to the point that I have every line memorized and have analyzed it down to nothing. But at the time I read it, I had little time for anything outside of school or work for it. So while I found it to be one of my better reads yet, I didn't remember much of it when I came across it before church this morning in our bookshelf.

Now that I read it again, though, I cry because I know what's coming, and have to watch my eye make-up. [o for a world w/out makeup!]

It makes me grateful that Christ has shown us true love, and it is not at all blind. It is the kind of love that does not look at the sacrifices of self, does not remember the things you've done to deserve less, and does not require standards to be achieved before love can be given. It reminds me a great deal of the love Istra/Psyche has.

Anyway, I was struck with a note of sadness watching Orual struggle with the concept of a wooden/stone/iron god. The Fox has told her that this god can neither see nor hear...and at that moment, we needed to get out of the car for church.

In Sunday School, we're studying prayer...one of the main points in this morning's lesson, though, was that we don't simply talk at God, or make requests...only a four year old does that.
God made us in His image so that man would be able to have that fellowship...a relationship with God. Relationships don't happen without two people communicating with one another. Really, the word stressed was dialogue.

To dialogue with God...beyond the simple "how are you doing today?" It stretches much further than that into a realm I often have trouble expressing. Yet even David mentions in here:

Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.
-Psalm 62:8

The first thing I noticed was that trust was the precursor to "pour out your heart before him."

There can be no relationship without trust. Of course, if you're not trusting someone else, you're self-reliant; and if you take away trust, all you're left with is what you provide yourself with. Without trust, we merely pray to the gods of our own making, and hope that somehow, we'll get the job done on our own.

I can think of no greater sadness than this.