"...poverty is a state where...we have no further resources of our own while remaining dependent on our Creator. Theoretically or theologically there is nothing very special about that. The lived experience of it, however, is cataclysmic. It is knowing who we are. It is being simply realistic. Poverty of spirit is almost another term for reality. When we are genuinely poor we can see ourselves, our life and relationships in a bright, clear light. However, we resist this poverty instinctively and a kind of gravitational force pulls us away from it because we prefer the illusion of ourselves as being independent of our Creator. In that false light of independent status we develop the Luciferian, egotistical notion of having a relationship with God as a relationship of equals. We lose the humble realism of understanding that because of [God's] (sic) utter generosity we have communion with [God], which is something much greater than relationship. We live and move and have our being in [God]. The illusion of independence costs us the reality of the freedom of being a child of God.
--From Light Within by Laurence Freeman, quoted in A Daily Guide for Prayer for All God's People by Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck, Upper Room Books
The concept of appropriate roles comes to mind. Aren't we being rather immature to insist that God be our Friend, instead of allowing him to be God? We are not God, but His children. I would rather be His child than His pal.
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