"Getting" God's love

   If you have read my blog posts before, I have been pretty candid about struggling to believe God loves me.

   The reasons may be many, and there may be more than I have come up with:

1) Bullying and lack of bonding with, and acceptance from, my peers
2) Preachers who preached about a God of judgment instead of a God of love
3) A very low self esteem, which came in a large part from #1

   I grew up in church, and wanted to be a Christian, but never found it easy, and no wonder. I was trying to serve a God who I didn't believe loved me, or even liked me, and who I believed was just waiting for me to do something wrong so He could throw me out. Yet, I wanted to do right, and I wanted to go to Heaven, so I tried.

  I look at my past Christian experience, and find it sad and pathetic. I would live it cowering in fear from God, as a kid might cower from an abusive father. My life was a big check list:
1) Read my Bible, check
2) Prayed, check
3) Went to church Sunday morning,  check
4) Went to church Sunday evening, check
5) Went to church Wednesday night, check

  And on and on. My Christian life has basically been a bunch of do's and don'ts. I felt I had to read a certain amount of verses in the Bible to make God happy with me. My prayers had to be a certain length, and I had to say the right things.

  God was this angry deity up in Heaven who was impossible to please, but the other option was hell. So I would trudge on, stumble and fall, get back up eventually, trudge on........ I'd measure myself by others. They don't go to Wednesday night prayer meeting, but I do. They do that, but I never would.

  Its really hard to have a relationship with someone who you don't love - for how could I love a God who didn't love me - and doesn't love you.

  There's a singer I don't listen to much, that penned these words that describe most of my life:

The Motions by Matthew West

This might hurt, it's not safe
But I know that I've gotta make a change
I don't care if I break
At least I'll be feeling something

‘Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life

I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming passion inside of me

I don't wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything
Instead of going through the motions?

No regrets, not this time
I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind
Let Your love make me whole
I think I'm finally feeling something

‘Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of this life

‘Cause I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
Without your all consuming passion inside of me

I don't wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything
Instead of going through the motions?

   That, sadly describes my life. I'd pray and read my Bible for as long as I thought was the right length/time, go to all the services at church, pay my tithe, follow the rules of the church...... and wondered why it all seemed so empty, dry, and boring.

  Because it was missing one important thing: Love. God's love.

  I have been praying a lot about this issue, and have read some excellent books, quotes, and blogs that have been a tremendous help to me. I have a long way to go with truly "getting" God's love, but most of us will never entirely "get" it, but His love is so beyond what we humans are capable of feeling, that we can't entirely "get it".

  But yet, I am making strides and have come a long way. These things I know, and am still working on completely believing, but I am getting there:

1) God loves me. (Period)
2) There is nothing I can do to cause God to love me more, or less.
3) God loves me as much as any other person. He has no favorites, nor least favorites.
4) God's love does not hinge on how many church services I attend, how long I read my Bible, how long I pray, etc
5) God IS love, and He cannot NOT love, as love is His very nature.
6) There are still rules, but He is not a God of rules and judgment.
7) It doesn't matter how bad the sin, how evil the sinner, God's grace and love are more than enough
8) God wants me to make it to Heaven even more than I do
9) God is not looking for excuses to throw me out on my ear

   And there are more.

   It isn't all one-sided. Not only do I need to keep working on believing God loves me thoroughly and completely, I must learn to love Him.

  I am not of the belief that once you are saved, you can never do anything to miss Heaven, but know people who do, and I am not going to use my blog to put them down. I asked a friend of mine who believes that way the following question: "If you can never miss Heaven after you become a Christian, then why fight temptation? When things get rough, why not give in, if you will still go to Heaven." I loved his answer, and it was almost like a hit to the gut: "Because I love God, and don't wan to do anything to displease Him."

 Why have I tried to fight temptation, and struggled to stay on my feet spiritually when things are rough? Because I don't want God to wipe my name out of the Book of Life, and risk going to hell. Serving God has been not much more than a "get out of hell free card."

  The once-saved-always saved belief scares me, yet so does what I have believed. You cannot have a healthy relationship with anyone, even God, if you feel they are just waiting for you to do something wrong so they can disown you. What the happy medium is, I don't know, but I shall do my best to live as God wants me to, and if I do stumble, try to realize He is eager to forgive me. I don't have to say the right words, or beg Him.

  One of the books that has helped me the most, and affected me more than any other I have ever read, other than the Bible, is The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. In the book, Manning talks about the story of the Prodigal Son from the Bible, and had this to say:

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). I am moved that the [prodigal son's] father didn’t cross-examine the boy, bully him, lecture him on ingratitude, or insist on any high motivation. He was so overjoyed at the sight of his son that he ignored all the canons of prudence and parental discretion and simply welcomed him home. The father took him back just as he was . . . We don’t have to sift our hearts and analyze our intentions before returning home. Abba just wants us to show up . . . we don’t have to be perfect or even very good before God will accept us . . . Even if we come back because we couldn’t make it on our own, God will welcome us. He will seek no explanations about our sudden appearance. He is glad we are there . . . [He will say, like the prodigal's father,] “Hush, child. I don’t need to know where you’ve been or what you’ve been up to.”

   God loves us with a love that we can never fathom. Its beyond how a human can feel, and He wants to forgive us more than we want forgiveness. The ideas I was given through sermons and altar calls that we have to beg God to forgive us, that its a hard process - that's so wrong. God loves us and wants us. If we are sincere, it doesn't take a hour long prayer and examining our motives. He is waiting to meet us more than halfway.

  Maybe a good place to start believing more that God loves me, is to start liking myself, and believing that many of the people God has placed in my life like me. Oh, I am sure there are and will be people who won't like me, but not everyone likes God, and He is perfect.

 It may sound weird to put it this way, but its kind of like God and I have just started dating. I know He is interested in me, and I want to spend more time with Him and let Him know I am interested in Him. I don't know if I truly love Him yet, though I suspect He loves me, but I definitely like Him, and want this relationship to go places. And hopefully it does.