Life with God

There are different ways of describing Christian conversion. One way is to say that God came into my life.

Of course, there’s a sense in which God was never absent. God’s providence is pervasive. What is meant by saying God came into my life is, in part, that I became aware of the God who was always there. Moreover, that God did something to make me aware. His grace restored my sight.

To say that God came into my life is a friendship metaphor. Like being lonely, adrift, until you have someone to share your life with. Share your likes with.

Another, perhaps richer way of describing conversion is to say, not that God came into my life, but that God brought me into his life. I have life, I have a life, because the living God shares his life with me.

This dovetails with the divine adoption metaphor. Take a five-year-old in an orphanage. He’s alive, but he’s out of place. He’s not a part of anyone there. He has no sense of belonging. Lost. Rootless. Alienated.

Suppose he’s adopted by a wonderful couple. There’s a sense in which his life truly begins on the day they come for him in the orphanage, and take him home. He may remember the orphanage. He may remember what his existence was like before he was adopted. But that was life without a center.

They take him into their lives. Into their home. Into their preexisting relationships. Into their daily routines. It all falls into place, as if he’d always been there, as if he’d always been with them.