God’s creative will is an eternally sustaining will, namely, that my existence will not end, summons me to humble acquiescence and dialogue—or to proud, illusory self-sufficiency, which is a kind of hell because it severs the bond of love and results in a turning in upon oneself. God’s love, in contrast to self-absorption, overflows, and though the eternal creator chooses to become one with love’s creation entering the created world as creative word becoming obedient to the Word’s own speaking of what it means to be a creature, obedient, as Saint Paul says, even “to the point of death— / even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). Christ was broken and died on the cross: Life did not spare the eternal Son, just as life will not spare us, but God’s Incarnate Word confirmed for us that love endures, no matter what humans or fate or life does or refuses to do. And in the end obedient love rises from the grave.
— from the book Mystics: Twelve Who Reveal God’s Love by Murry Bodo, OFM
