Over the past couple weeks I've been reading a book called "Embracing the Love of God" by James Bryan Smith. It's an incredibly good book that gets at the heart of learning to let yourself be loved, which seems to be increasingly difficult as we grow older, sustain more emotional wounds, and become more cynical. It's also an easy, short read.
As I read through it again (it's my second time; the first was about two years ago), I find that I've had a view of God that wasn't very loving at all. I thought of a tolerant, but disappointed and somewhat annoyed God. You know, it was kind of the idea of an irritated customer who just got some machine or something that didn't work. It was like God was saying, "Are you kidding? I paid good blood for this little Christian, and it's not even working right."
So, now I'm kind of wondering what got that idea into me in the first place. I've heard that non-Christians only know as much about Jesus as they can see in His followers. I think that's true, and I also think that a lot of Christians get their ideas of God from the way their brothers and sisters live.
For example, here's something I heard a lot as I grew up:
"I love them, of course, but I just really don't like them."
That doesn't make any sense. I know loves and likings are two different things, but you can't love someone and also dislike them! I think this idea comes from some legalistic view of love that is mainly a duty. "I love you" doesn't really mean "I enjoy being with you and I like who you are". It's more like "You're a ministry to me, and I'm willing to sacrifice my time to be with you because I can tell that you need it."
And I think that's what gave me this idea of a God. In my mind, when I would ask for forgiveness for my sins, it was kind of a "Well, because of Jesus, I guess I kind of have to. But that doesn't mean I like you." And then I would become critical and unforgiving towards others because I felt like that was God's posture toward me.
After all that, learning to accept God's love for me has been a process of reconfiguring my view of God into someone who actually wants to be with me, who both loves me and likes me, and who acts like the father in the story of the prodigal son: not interested in saving face or making sure I "learned my lesson", but running from afar to embrace me. It's the hardest thing to learn to accept, but I'm looking forward to reaching the point where I've really internalized that.
I realize this ran sort of long, but I can't find anything to cut out. Thanks for reading. Here's a quote from Pastor David Choi when he was here at Wheaton a while back:
"Every time you sin and ask Jesus for forgiveness, He smiles."
It's only cheesy if you don't think about it.
