The only thing I could think of, as is often the case with me, was a line from one of my favorite movies:
“Your words shamed me.”
[note: I admit additional shame for another reason entirely. Brazen Jane Austen fan that I am, I do not know, off the top of my head, if the line is taken unadulterated from her prose, or if it was reworded for the script. For shame, you say. I know.]
Someone has corrected me, and I believe it is of some note. A few posts ago, I was talking about fantasy, and the remarkable ability to see through a religious fantasy as it is envisioned. The remarkable part being that it requires no one else’s permission. That once a heart desires the spiritual life, it is, in many ways, already living it. No bars stand between the sincere heart and God.
This person was very right in pointing out that a relationship with the Divine requires the permission of the Divine.
As I understand it, there is some debate in Christian theology on free will. It is a problem. In other words, God gave humans free will – but knows what we will choose. So….isn’t that, like, not free will? Isn’t that predestination?
I am very fond of the Islamic approach to this problem, which I find very straightforward and not at all logically problematic. Basically, we are taught that God made us, and knows what we will choose, but that our choices are very real to us in the time that we make them. Parents often know their children well enough to predict their choices; a Creator’s knowledge of His creation is infinitely greater. It gives me a sense of comfort, actually – that God is, in a sense with me in my choices, in that He knows what I am faced with, knows my heart, knows what is hard for me, and, ultimately, knows what I will choose. It also gives me a source of help in difficulty. I pray: Oh God, You made me, and You know this is hard for me, and You know best why it it hard for me. Grant me success in this, and give me the wisdom and steadfastness to choose, and stick by, the right thing.
When I chose Islam, nothing stood between me and that choice. It’s not like being admitted into your dream graduate program, in that you can try and fail. Of course, in extreme cases, there may be practical bars to declaring faith. One may feel afraid; one’s family may forbid one, in all the ways it is able, to change faiths. But Allah knows what is in the breasts. [3:154] Whatever your state is with God, it is between you and Him, and that is all. No one can take it from you. Faith, like love, is really one of the great secrets of the heart. We can look for its outward manifestations, but as to its strength and sincerity, we can never know what truly lies in the breast of another. God knows best.
So when I say that we have complete autonomy in faith, this isn’t exactly what I mean. I mean that our hearts, created with love, compassion, and infinite wisdom, belong also to their Creator, and that it must be so, and that He guides us according to that wisdom. That it is always there. The hint is ever-present, that there is more to all this, that we might feel more satisfaction in beholding a cloud, or the full moon in a clear sky. That we might say, Subhan’Allah, Glory be to God, instead of, Wow, pretty moon. And that saying it will make a difference to our hearts. That we will be free, that the ability to say that, and the knowledge to say it, will be the dearest thing in all the world, and the things that harm us thereafter will be mere pinpricks in comparison to the pain of separation from The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful. I believe that nudge is there. It is all the other noise that gets in the way, convincing us that we are dreaming, or that our own importance is all that matters in a void of meaning. That what we can see and point to is all that is there. Pretty moon.
One of my favorite prayers begins, “Oh God, Oh Changer of the hearts…” When my heart began to desire God, and began, as a consequence, to desire Islam…I was making the choice: am I really going to do this? But even that was gently guided by The Compeller, unbeknownst to me. Even the longing was put there in mercy. How could I claim that my heart is independent? It is like that pot of tea over there insisting it is the master of its own fate.
I like to think that I don’t belong completely to myself. I feel safe, cared for, less lonely. I love thinking that God made me for a purpose, and that it is to worship Him, and that my sincerest, dearest desire is perfectly in line with what I was intended for. Of course I bungle it all the time. I feel this way when I sit and reflect, or when I pray. But in my day-to-day life, my mistakes are much the same as they ever were, and I make and remake the intention to improve myself, even as I make excuses for my sins and tell myself, This is the last time. May God forgive and guide me!
The thing about turning to God, I think, is that it can be done by the hardest heart, by the darkest sinner, at any time. He always hears that call. As long as we are breathing, the chance to begin completely anew is there. It is unlike any other relationship, because there is no limit to God’s forgiveness. And this is also what I mean. Going to your lover requires his welcome, his trust, his open arms; misuse these, and you may find yourself alone. Lovers hold each other accountable. Even a kind person, abused enough, will eventually respond to overtures of sincerity with: I can’t. But not if God is The Beloved. He is independent of need, unlike any other kind of love object, so He is limitless in His ability to hear us say: I’m sorry. Take me back.
