It’s a chaotic season. Over in Bangkok, our World Race team is being prevented from leaving the country by protests in the airport. And here in America the airports and highways are jammed by a pell mell rush for home. Tomorrow our lives come cascading to a halt gathered around tables, ostensibly to give thanks to a deity many of us neither know nor trust.
God is like that – he loves those most who need him the most. Our need forces us to be dependent on him. We struggle to feel God’s love in America because we depend on him so little.
Manning observes that we need to be more secure in how God feels about us. God is genuinely fond of you. He’s not waiting for you to become more moral to start loving you.
Prayer is about letting yourself be loved. Manning says, “It’s like slipping into a tub of hot water and letting his love wash over us.” I sometimes go through the desert of my own passivity toward God, suffering a sense of distance as a result. But I rarely get mad at him or wonder if he can be trusted. I figure, “Hey, he set this thing up. He created me and wants to hang out with me, so it’s on me to reciprocate. If I’m too lazy or distracted to spend time with him, that’s my bad.”
So many of us struggle to trust God. We feel like he’s a benign, disengaged deity. We feel abandoned to cope with our throbbing pain. “How do I know that he really love me?” we ask. But when our need collides with his presence, it becomes an answer our heart’s deepest cry.
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Could it be that we can all say together “Behold! What manner of love the Father has given unto to us, that we should be called the children of God..” I John 3:1
I like that command “behold” because it tells me to look at Father God’s love, and that he calls me his child even when I don’t act like it. Matt & Mary many times do things that I cannot understand, but they have always been and will always be children of Mark. Even if they changed their name, were angry at me, or anything – they cannot deny truth that my blood runs in their veins – neither do I.
I was just asked a couple days ago by a friend what specific activity or person inspired me to see and feel God’s love? My answer was “reading any of Brennan Manning’s books and gazing at the Cross. I remember reading his book “The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus” around this time two years ago, and it was the warmest and most tender experience I had reading any book. You have reminded me to read it again (it was one of the only 10 books of my vast library that I brought here to the Philippines).