Confession: I struggle with accepting God’s love, as I generally feel unlovable.
This was a comment I made recently on this blog:
And between you and I, I still struggle with the ‘school master’ view of God. I struggle with his love, as I generally feel unlovable.
But that’s more reflective of a personality defect than anything else.
Tim, a commentator on this blog, who I absolutely love, responded:
But no, you do not have a personality defect. The problem stems in large part from those legalistic Christians “You HAVE to do this! You HAVE to do that! Or else it’s the fires of hell for you!!!” They are the ones that tend to make the news and being so voluble and noisy are also the ones we hear in the streets (or used to at any rate). Hearing it again and again has an effect unfortunately.
Plus there is the thought, unbidden, of how someone such as He is can want anything to do with us and how can we compare? Until we realise that He doesn’t want us to compare ourselves to Him, He loves us as we are. In any relationship that can happen, not understanding how someone can love us as we are.
I think there is much to commend in Tim’s observations.
I will say though, that I do have a personality type that tends to give rise to cognitive ‘splitting‘, more commonly known as black-and-white thinking. I find it almost impossible to detect the ‘grey’ areas of life, including in my appraisal of others. But this is evidenced primarily in my self-perception.
I will always lean to the negative in reflecting on myself, unable to see the positive and can become fixated on my weaknesses – or perceived weaknesses. This can give rise to a feeling of being unlovable or even unlikeable. Ironically, as my wife points out, the realities simply do not bear out this self-image, and she has been encouraging me to look at my positive aspects.
The reason I’m laying this out, is that this negative self-thinking impacts profoundly on my relationship with God. I become convinced that He is not really able to love me, and recently, as I meditated on meeting Him face to face, I was filled with a sense of dread. Now, this is not the sort of response one would expect from a person anticipating meeting someone they love, and that loves them.
I knew something was seriously wrong.
A few things have conspired of late to help. Part of this was Tim’s comment above; part of it has been my wife, family, and others, telling me of my positive qualities.
During one conversation with my wife, she mentioned how much I love the children and how much this shows. I found myself saying that I would love the children in the same way; no matter what they did, or became, or what trouble they got themselves into.
And then the breakthrough. My wife said: “and you think God does not love you in the same way; in fact he does, and infinitely more so”.
I was confronted with the realisation that I was operating in a manner as if I could love others in a way, that was superior than God Himself could love me . Which is patently absurd.
Alongside all of this, I came across a wonderful blog post written by Digitalnun and entitled: Gentleness with Self. Here is the conclusion:
The desire to do more can be commendable, but it can also be a form of spiritual ambition which is anything but godly. To tell them apart may require some delicate discernment. I may be wrong, but I suspect my need of sleep is greater than my need of extra prayer at the moment. God is being gentle with me. I just have to learn to be gentle with myself.
Learning to be gentle with myself hit me with such force.
We have a God who deals in inperfection and brokeness; it’s His very job, and He’s been doing this for a very long time.
As a result of trying to ‘go easy’ on myself, reflect on my positive attributes, as well as count my blessings, everything has improved and I have received a sense of peace that has been long missing.
God knows my weaknesses and accepts me as I am. Of course, a personality type like mine will always strive towards improvement, but I know right this minute that God loves – and even likes – me, more than I could even begin to imagine. As we seek to towards growth and maturity of faith, it is 100% God’s responsibility, as well as 100% our responsibility. We are not alone in this and are called to corporate with Him.
Thank God.
He being all in all – we with as little power in ourselves, as little excellence, or merit, as the water in baptism, or the bread and wine in Holy Communion; yet strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
Increase in me this Grace of love; in spite of all my unworthiness. (Blessed JHN – Christ in Us.)
Tags: Christian Life
November 10th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Your and your wife are so wise, surely not an accident you are together! I appreciate your thoughtful – and thought provoking – posts. Being a parent does help to understand God’s love better. I still work on it all the time, but one of the best things that ever happened to me was learning to laugh at myself once in a while.
November 10th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Yes, I think we all feel or worry about this but we should not fall into the trap of assuming that we are unlovable to God. I take great comfort from the fact that He has a burning love for us all, the black, white, diseased, deformed, the ugly, the twisted and even the sinners among us (especially the sinners).
We need not worry at all that through our human foibles, God loves us any the less; after all, as your wife pointed out, He made us and He is our Father and what Father does not love his child?
November 10th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Yes indeed it’s so difficult for us at first to comprehend Father’s absolutely unconditional love towards us.
My particular issues were from stern upbringing that more or less taught me God has a big stick behind his back – that’s a lie! Add to that my being performance-driven in order to gain acceptance, it took the excellent teaching about the Father Heart of God to bring full freedom to my spirit.
I pray you may be blessed Stuart with a deep revelation of Father’s Heart and of being ‘on Father’s knee’ and seeing His pure delight in you. Amen
November 10th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
Stacy said: “one of the best things that ever happened to me was learning to laugh at myself once in a while”
I do it all the time. The problems begin when I start laughing at everyone else as well, lol!
November 11th, 2011 at 11:54 am
I just realised you used the word ‘love’ there. *Puts on a gruff manly voice* Yes, I love you too, but in a gruff manly way of course, lol.
November 11th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
The real issue – one that needs some skilful discernment is to realise what is genuine difficulty in accepting love and what is inverted pride.
‘I am so sinful’/'God is so Holy’ can both be ideas that have a curious habit of placing the ‘Self’ centre stage.
Fr Gilbert Shaw in one of the retreats he conducted at Fairacres SLG Convent (Anglican Carmalite) in Oxford in the 1960s says something we should all take note of:
When we sin, we should say: ‘Sorry Lord, failed again, help me to do better next time.’ And move on – anything else is just self-justification.
A great deal of our inner/Spiritual life fall foul on this score. We are constantly wanting to placate – even entertain – the ego.
‘God does not love me.’ ‘I am unlovable’ is really a clever rouse to stay put, not moving on, overly interested in the self. Sometimes you just have to move on and trust – yes it can be a little like walking on water – and as with Peter, when he became overly interested in his situation he began to sink!
There is a pervasive error in much Christian thinking at present that we should be respectable… It is a grave error and stems from self interest…
P.
November 11th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Sorry Peter but I have to disagree with you on that. When people suffer depression then that feeling of being unworthy is nothing to do with the ego and being too proud. They really do believe they are unworthy.
November 11th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Absolutely right Tim. There’s so much more at play than Peter’s oversimplification