It All Begins With God-Who-is-Love

 

It All Begins with God-Who-Is-Love

So God created all humankind in God's image

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27

Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

1 John 4:8

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and

we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

1 John 3:16

Twenty-odd years ago I taught an adult Sunday School class based on the book Faith that Hurts, Faith that Heals: Understanding the Fine Line between Healthy Faith and Spiritual Abuse (Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton: Thomas Nelson Press, 1993).  Even though the class was comprised solely of church attenders, nearly everyone had a story to tell, and many were still caught up in grieving the wounds real spiritual abuse had left behind.  Nearly everyone, it seems, has a story to tell about feeling misled or abused by others in the name of religion.

Yet, spiritual abuse can also happen without ever invoking religion.  When our loved ones, or when people in authority hurt us, there is often an unconscious spiritual dimension.  If those who we count on to love and care for us hurt us, it is easy to believe that the Creator blew it; that the Creator didn't create so well, after all.  Similarly, when we hurt others, either by choosing words and actions that hurt, or by withholding words and actions that help, we not only wound others, but we also wound ourselves.  We begin to question our own capacity--and perhaps the capacity of the world--to embody goodness.

Many people think of God as being real only if God acts as cosmic puppet master, who causes all things to happen, including all that is bad.  Such a narrow view of God and faith sets us up for trouble.  Everyone suffers in life, and all have to find ways to deal with that suffering.  Blaming God is tempting, but it does not lead to healing, when we are wounded.

I also struggle with the theodicy question--that is, the question of how God can be good and loving when there is so much senseless evil and suffering in the world.  I have my own stories of spiritual wounding, and some aspects of those stories have left wounds I will be dealing with forever.  The good news is that God is all about healing, and that God's healing is available to all, who are willing to seek and follow God's way.  It does mean letting go of the idea that God controls everyone and everything that happens around us.  

Indeed, scripture teaches us that God is love, and that our loving God knows about our hurts, and about our darkest impulses.  Scripture also teaches that God knows about our hopes and our potential for good, despite our darkest impulses.  God is love, which necessarily means that God is good, and God is able to work good in us, even transforming us into the very people God (and our true deepest hopes) want us to be.  

Which is not to imply that knowing and following God's way is easy.

Although God created us to be our  most true selves and to find the most meaning and fulfillment by living faithfully out of God's love, the reality is that sin is real and all of us face grave disappointments and hurts as a result.  Further, the reality of sin also means that nearly all of us have also wounded others in ways that really matter--because of our own sin.  But what is even more unfortunate is that this experience of sin has caused many to give up altogether on trust in a loving God, Who meets us where we are and leads us into healing, and wholeness, and joy.

Indeed, so many people have found that God does lead them into healing and good life.  Many. many people have found that part of this good life comes through a growing understanding of God and God's love.  So, let me share here a bit of what I have learned that I believe is particularly relevant to beginning the healing journey with God.

First, the Christian scriptures insist both that God is good and that sin is real.  I will say more about this in other devotions, but I do want to start with this premise.  We speak of God as holy, which means set apart from anything (sin, evil) that stands against God or God's will.  God's holiness is essential, because it means that though we cannot trust human goodness--including our own goodness, or our own ability to act out of love--we can trust in God.  God is holy.  God is God and we are not.

Second, Christianity is unique in its ability to describe God as love.  Christian scripture describes God as love in at least three ways.

First, scripture just flatly says so:  God is love.  We saw it in the reading quoted at the beginning of this writing from 1 John 4:8.  The Bible says God is love, and that any who know God must also love.  

Second, scripture tells us that Jesus is the true embodiment of love, and therefore his example is what teaches us what love is.  Jesus emptied himself of the glory of heaven to join us, in the flesh.  Further, in order to free us from slavery to sin and evil, and to save us from death, he gave his own life for us.  This example of sacrificing on behalf of other is the definition of how we are to understand love.

The third explanation of God as love, however, is in Christianity's trinitarian understanding of God;that is, that God the Creator actually came among us in the person of Christ Jesus, as well as in the Holy Spirit.  The idea that there is one integrated God, who is also a community of three, makes clear that God is all about relationships and about what is right and whole in relationships.  Right-ness in relationships is in God's very DNA (so to speak ☺), which is what love is all about.    

Indeed, all of God's creation reflects God's handiwork in that all creation operates out a great complexity of relationships.  Everything in this world is relational-from ancestors, and families, and parents, who bring each creature into the world, to gravity and other scientific relationships, that make all existence possible, to food that always comes from other beings--all of this stems from God and reflects God's nature.

That is the point of these writings.  I want to explore healing in a sinful world, exploring some boundaries within which our faith truly is an Agent of God-Who-Is Love.  

The question I pose for all of us to day is this: are we so doubtful that we secretly believe we do not need God?

• Are we so selfish, that we believe we should explain to God what God should want us to do, and therefore believe we do not need God's healing and Guidance? Or
• Are we so lazy we expect God to heal us without any belief that God should expect obedient action on our part?  Or
• Are we so greedy that we do not want to be part of God's love, which would cause to give back to others?  Or
• Are we simply overwhelmed by the fear that trying one more thing would lead to one more failure or, worse, that trying one more time would lead to one more deep wounding?

Are we afraid to believe that love--even a love as powerful as God's love--can make a difference?

God is God.  God's power is the one thing we can trust to be enough to make the difference the world needs, and that you and I need.  Dare to put your trust in God.  Dare to trust that love is worth it, no matter what.