"...think back to the images from the Prophets: God as Parent and as Lover. Both those human relationships contain an element of what God has always been seeking from human beings...the difference between those two relationships shows, I believe, what God has been seeking in his long history with the human race. He desires not the clinging, helpless love of a child who has no choice, but the mature, freely given love of a lover. He has been "romancing" us all along.
A lover possesses complete freedom, yet chooses to give it away and become dependent....God never got such mature love from the nation of Israel. The record shows God nudging the young nation toward maturity: on the day Israel advanced into the Promised Land, the manna ceased. God had provided a new land; now it was up to the Israelites to grow their own food. In a typically childish response, Israel promptly started worshiping fertility gods.
God wanted a lover; he got a permanently student child."
[Disappointment with God, pg.163]
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