Outrageous Grace

Grace.

 

My first thoughts when I hear the word grace are of forgiveness and second chances and 'how sweet the sound'.  But they're quiet, unassuming, gentle ideas.  'Grace' conjures up someone who is just too nice, someone who is slow to anger and quick to forgive.

 

It is a sanitised, domesticated, safe word.

 

But it is not what God means by 'grace'.

 

Yes, God is slow to anger, quick to forgive and quick to love.  But His grace is also outrageous.  It is offensive and provocative and unbelievable.

 

It doesn't make sense.  It doesn't add up.  It isn't fair.

 

Those who are 'good' are no more entitled to it than those who are worse than the worst.  It has nothing to do with us and everything to with Jesus.  It is free for those who want it.  It is available to Christians, Atheists, 'good' people, charity workers, those in need of charity, the homeless, teachers, the uneducated, doctors, the sick, lawyers, law-breakers, children, adults, men, women.  It is available to all who want it.

 

It can't be bought, it can't be fathomed, it can't be exhausted.

 

I love this verse in Romans which describes it:

"Sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace.  When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.  All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it.  Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end."

 

[Romans 5:20-21 MSG]

 

The aggressive forgiveness we call grace.

 

Grace is not gentle, or softly-spoken.  It does not tiptoe around the edge of awkward situations.  It does not turn its back on our sin.

 

Instead, it plunges into our chaotic, sinful mess and invites us into life - deep, fulfilled, whole, true, eternal life.

 

Perhaps instead of singing John Newton's famous hymn, we should sing,

 

Outrageous grace

How fierce the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

 

 

I Like Myself The Way I Am

I was feeling a bit blue this afternoon about one thing and another and I happened to catch the end of the film 'Penelope'. 

 

I remember watching it at some point in the past, but I couldn't remember the whole storyline.

 

Penelope is a girl born with a curse - she has the nose of a pig.  And because of that, she is rejected by everyone apart from her parents and is forced to live at home, never leaving the house.

 

She misses out on so many things, because she is concerned by what people think of her and by the unkind things that they say to her.

 

Naturally, she is self-conscious and insecure.  She doesn't really love herself.

 

It is not until the end of the film that she realises that the one person's opinion that influences and affects her self-esteem is her own.

 

I love this line at the end of the film when she realises this - "I like myself the way I am."

 

It is such a powerful moment.

 

I don't always believe this about myself.  There are lots of things that I would like to change about myself, but I want to start saying this over myself.

 

I want to speak God's words over myself:

 

“You are my Son [daughter], chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”

 

[Luke 3:22 MSG]

 

I love these words in the chorus of 'Beautiful' by Mercyme -

 

       You're beautiful

       You're beautiful

       You are made for so much more than all of this

       You're beautiful

       You're beautiful

       You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His

       You're beautiful

 

 

Loving At All Is A Risk

I had the TV on in the background today whilst I was doing some ironing.  I'm not sure what was on - if it was an advert, a trailer, or part of a programme - but I heard the following line, which has been stuck in my mind ever since:

 

"Loving at all is a risk."

 

Love is a risk.

 

C. S. Lewis famously wrote,

 

"To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

 

Last week, I watched a bit of the second Pirates of the Caribbean film.  The 'baddie' in the film is Davey Jones: a man who had his heart broken once and, to avoid further pain, removed it and locked it away in a chest.  He carries the key to the chest about his person at all times, to prevent it ever being touched, or hurt, or broken again.

 

I know there have been times when I have felt like doing the same (obviously metaphorically, not literally).  I have been tempted to shut down my heart, to close for business, to put up a 'Trespassers will be prosecuted' sign.  I have been tempted to shut down and shut the world out.

 

But whilst shutting our hearts down like this will certainly minimise pain, it will also numb all emotion.  We will be safe from harm, but we will also be cut off from true love, real friendship, genuine happiness.  We will miss out on all of the good things that life has to offer.

 

Love is a risk.

 

And we see the ultimate risk-taking love when we look to the cross.  There we see a naked, beaten, vulnerable man bearing His soul to show us His love.

 

Even with no guarantee of the return of our love or affection, God loved us.

 

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

[Romans 5:8 NIV]

 

God showed His love for us.  Powerfully, passionately, personally. 

 

Loving at all is a risk.  But it is worth it.

 

 

Love Yourself

Loving yourself is not terribly British.  Blowing one's own trumpet or singing one's praises seems unnecessary.

 

We Brits are far more likely to talk ourselves down, to feign 'humility' or 'modesty' by saying that we're not all that good at something actually, or we must have just got lucky.

 

We don't really celebrate ourselves (at least, not out loud for other people to hear us - for fear of seeming arrogant and conceited), and we don't really know how to love ourselves.

 

But until we can love and accept ourselves, we will never be able to truly love others.

 

You can't give something you haven't got.

 

There is an assumption throughout the Bible that we will love ourselves.  And love ourselves well.  In fact, Jesus said that the second most important command was for us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves [Matthew 22:39].

 

Loving ourselves is important.  It is fundamental.  Brene Brown writes,

 

"Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do."

 

And as Carrie Bradshaw says in Sex and the City -

"The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all, is the one you have with yourself."

 

I love this passage in Ephesians about love -

"Mostly what God does is love you.  Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us.  His love was not cautious but extravagant.  He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us.  Love like that."
 

[Ephesians 5:2 MSG]

We can only love like that - giving everything of ourselves to others without trying to get something back - when we are secure in ourselves and when we have accepted God's love for us and have begun to love ourselves.

 

 

 

 

Because You're Worth It

I've started reading a really interesting book today called 'The Gifts of Imperfection' by Brene Brown. 

 

As someone who constantly battles with perfectionism, the idea that imperfection could be okay, let alone a gift, is quite a difficult one for me to swallow.  However, the first section that I've been reading has been really interesting.

 

In one of the early chapters, she describes the concept of worthiness - feeling worthy, or good enough, for love and belonging -

 

"The biggest challenge for most of us is believing that we are worthy now, right this minute.  Worthiness doesn't have prerequisites.  So many of us have knowingly created/unknowingly allowed/been handed down a long list of worthiness prerequisites [she continues to list the 'prerequisites we conjure up to become 'worthy' of love and belonging] ... We are worthy of love and belonging now.  Right this minute.  As is."

 

I love how this concept of worthy right now is seen in Jesus and beautifully displayed through His ministry.  Jesus reached out and touched the blind, the 'unclean', the rejected.  He touched the outsiders of society and called them worthy.  And in declaring them worthy, they became worthy.

 

It is the same with us.

 

He reaches out to us and embraces us, no matter where we find ourselves, or what we have done or thought or believed.  And He declares us worthy.  Because of His great love, manifested in His death for us on the cross.

 

"Immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us.  He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ [...] Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah."

 

[Ephesians 2:4, 6 MSG] 

 

We can't earn God's love.  But we don't need to.

 

We are worthy because He says we are.

 

 

 

Love Is A Verb

I have been enjoying another series of the Gilmore Girls this evening. 

 

At one point, Lorelai and her daughter (who is at University), have been communicating via email.  Lorelai complains that Rory has been writing really brief emails and hasn't been including enough information:

 

She says,

"You're not even using verbs.  That's not a relationship.  Relationships need verbs."

 

Relationships need verbs.

 

As Newton Faulkner sang,

 

         "Love, love is a verb

         Love is a doing word."

 

 

Love should be something active.  Love is more than just words. 

 

It is easy to tell someone you love them, so much harder to show them.  Loving someone in actions takes effort.  It requires time and energy and compromise.  It is so much easier to simply say you love someone.

 

But God didn't just say He loved us.  He showed us His love.  He sent His Son to die for us to show us His love.  The cross is a display of His powerful, passionate love.

 

John urges this in his first letter:

"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

 

[1 John 3:18 NIV]

 

It's easy to say you love someone.  But love is a verb.

 

Just As I Am

I've been having a sort out over the past few days and have rediscovered lots of my GCSE and A Level Art work.

One project that I worked on was called 'Embellish' and I looked at the way that we embellish things in life, especially ourselves - our appearances and our stories.

My sketchbook is full of black and white images (both photos and sketches), which I have painted over in bold colours and adorned with beads and sequins and fabric to illustrate the way we hide our true selves.

There is one black and white image of a naked woman which I have painted over with a bright pink sequinned dress.

In the same way that I have embellished the images in my sketchbook, we can embellish ourselves. Sometimes we feel that the naked truth won't be enough. Or we feel embarrassed or ashamed of the truth.

And so we cover up the truth with layers of embellishment. We layer on colour and beads and fabric and hide our true selves.

But God sees the truth. He sees through the layers and the embellishments and He loves us just the same.

I am slowly realising that God's love for me is not at all related to what I do or don't do. It's not related to the layers that I put on to make myself 'presentable', or to embellish myself.

It's about Him.

"We love because he first loved us."

[1 John 4:19 NIV]

As Mark Darcy says to Bridget Jones, "I like you.  Just as you are."

We have no need for embellishment or disguise, we can simply come as we are before God. And He will love and accept us just as we are.

If At First You Don't Succeed...

When I was at school, I used to hate making mistakes in my exercise books: if I spelt something incorrectly or got the wrong answers, I used to cross it out really well, so that nothing could be seen.

 

I didn't want anyone else - or even myself - to see my mistakes.

 

And sometimes I do the same in life - in my mind, I scribble out the things that I don't want to see, the mistakes that I'm embarrassed about, or ashamed of.

 

But I was really challenged this week when I was marking some exercise books and found one student had labelled her work "Try 1" and then, when that hadn't gone quite as she had hoped, she had simply written underneath "Try 2" and had rewritten her ideas and improved them. 

 

In one case, there was even a "Try 3".

 

She hadn't minded me, or anyone else, seeing her mistakes.  She hadn't tried to hide them, or to cross them out.  She was happy for me to see that she had had a go and had kept working to improve her writing. 

 

She was happy to try again.

 

We've all heard the phrase If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.  But how many of us actually like people seeing us not succeeding, or trying again and again?  How many of us are brave enough and secure enough in ourselves to let people see "Try 1", "Try 2", "Try 3" etc.?

 

Many of us, when we know we have 'failed' or have fallen short of our own expectations, want to hide. 

"I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

 

[Genesis 3:10 NIV]

 

When we feel embarrassed or ashamed of our failings, we hide.  But we don't need to hide.  We don't need to fear.  If we trust in God and His love for us, our fear will we wiped away.

 

"There is no room in love for fear.  Well-formed love banishes fear.  Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love."
 

[1 John 4:18 MSG] 
 

We no longer need to fear or to hide.  Instead, we can let people see our efforts and our failures and our successes.  We can show people our "Try 1" and our "Try 2" and our "Try 3" and so on, because we are secure in ourselves and in our God's love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wardrobe Of Our Thoughts

I bought the film 'Eat, Pray, Love' the other day and am just rewatching it this evening.

 

It's about a woman who is dissatisfied with her life in New York and decides to travel to Italy, India and Bali to find herself again.

 

At one point, when she is on a spiritual retreat in India, a man she has sort of befriended tells her she has to start choosing what thoughts to 'put on' in the same way that she chooses what clothes to wear.

 

I don't spend very long choosing what to wear in the mornings.  The formula is simple: always work from the feet up.  Is it raining or freezing?  Yes - boots and something that will go with boots.  No - heels (or sandals in the summer) and something that will go with heels.

 

But when it comes to our thoughts, too easily we let ourselves think things without thinking about them - we think without thinking.

 

We throw on any old thoughts, regardless of whether they are flattering or 'our size' or if they suit us.  We put our thoughts on without wondering if they are true.

 

I have recently challenged myself to stop using the word 'should' in my own thoughts and conversations with myself.  'Should' makes me feel as though I am obliged to do something and I don't measure up.  'Should' suggests I fall short.  'Should' makes me feel that there is only one right and perfect way of doing things.

 

As someone who is trying to break free from the hold of perfectionism and the feeling that there is always only one right way of doing something, eliminating 'Should' has been a big help.

 

Now, I find myself thinking, "I could have done that" or "I would like to do this".

 

I have started to rethink my thinking.

 

The Bible talks about taking control over our thoughts and rethinking our thinking:

"The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.  On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

 

[2 Corinthians 10:1-6 NIV]
 

We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

If my thoughts - about myself and other people - don't measure up or match what Christ thinks, I need to change them, to make them line up with what God says. 

I need to rethink my thinking. 

 

Let It Rain

I wouldn't feel very British if I didn't post about the weather and the inordinate amount of rain we have experienced over the last few days.

 

Despite the need for rain for watering the ground and helping the crops to grow, most of us would rather it didn't rain.  Ever.

 

I am happy for it to rain when I am inside and warm and I don't have to go out in it.  But when I have to drive in the rain, or walk in it, I hate it.  I hate that it soaks through your clothes and leaves you feeling damp and soggy.  I hate that it takes ages to warm up and dry out again.  I hate that it makes your hair big and fuzzy.

 

I don't often hear myself saying, Let it rain.

 

But these are the words of one of my favourite songs:

 

        "Let it rain, let it rain.

        Open the floodgates of Heaven.

        I feel the rains of your Love,

        I feel the winds of your Spirit .

        And now the heartbeat of heaven,

        Let us hear.

        Let it rain, let it rain.

        Open the floodgates of Heaven."

 

 

The words of this song are based on God's words in Isaiah:

 

       "You heavens above, rain down righteousness;
       let the clouds shower it down.
       Let the earth open wide,
       let salvation spring up,
       let righteousness grow with it;
       I, the Lord, have created it."

 

      [Isaiah 45:8 NIV]

 

 

Whilst we might not like the rain, it can be a sign that reminds us of God's goodness and grace and mercy and loving-kindness and forgiveness.  Falling on us and soaking us to the bone.

 

That's the kind of rain I want to be drenched in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love Letters

I have been watching the film 'Dear John' this evening.  I joined it halfway through, so I'm not 100% sure what's happening, but I think I'm just about up to speed.

 

At the heart of the story is a young couple, separated by distance, who write to each other (or, to be properly American, write each other).

 

The letters are filled with messages of love between the couple and stories from their days.

 

When we talk about prayer, this is what I picture.  Not a stuffy ritual.  Not a list of wishes or wants.  Not a hands-together-and-eyes-shut affair.  But messages of love between us and God.

 

This is how Jesus taught us to pray -

 

“Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God.  Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage.  The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.  The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant.  They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God.  Don’t fall for that nonsense.  This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need.  With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply."

 

[Matthew 6:6-13 MSG]

 

When we write letters to those we love, we don't try to show off or pretend we're someone we're not.  We don't hide the truth.  We express ourselves honestly and openly.  We share our hearts and we share our love.

 

God speaks to us through prayer, but He also speaks to us through the Bible.  His Word is a love letter [there is a brilliant and beautiful description of the Bible as God's love letter to us on this website - http://www.fathersloveletter.com/text.html].

 

God loves us and wants us to know the love He has for us.  He has already written to us.

 

We simply need to open the letter.

 

 

 

 

 

Disappointment And Delight

Life is full of disappointments.

 

Oranges with more pips than flesh.  Trains being delayed.  Computers crashing and losing your work.  Rain after you have straightened your hair.  Photocopiers jamming when you're in a rush.

 

And it's not just things that can disappoint us.  People can too. 

 

We can feel let down by other people and by God.  They let us down, or they don't pull through for us.

 

But the worst feeling of disappointment is disappointment in ourselves.  We feel that we haven't just let ourselves down, but have let other people down, too.  It's like we have to feel the disappointment twice.

 

I've just been enjoying another dose of The Gilmore Girls. Rory doesn't get an internship that she was really hoping for and, as well as being disappointed herself, she feels that she has disappointed everyone else too.  And that feeling is worse than just being disappointed in herself.

 

Similarly, we can feel that we have disappointed other people too.  Or, even worse, we can feel like God is disappointed in us.

 

Yesterday, I wrote about how God's love for us depends on what He is like and what He does, not what we are like or what we do.

 

But it goes further than that.  God doesn't just tolerate us because that's His nature.  He loves us and delights in us.

 

        "For the Lord your God is living among you.
        He is a mighty saviour.
        He will take delight in you with gladness.
        With his love, he will calm all your fears.
        He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

 

        [Zephaniah 3:17 NLT]

 

 

When she doesn't get the internship, Rory's mum comforts her, saying,

"You could never be a disappointment to me. Ever. Never ever. Never ever ever."

 

And God says the same to us. 

 

Delight.  Not disappointment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Not Me, It's You

It's not you, it's me.

 

And so ends many a film or TV relationship.  Unable to compromise and make things work, a couple will break up, with one person uttering these infamous words and blaming the breakdown of the relationship on their own failures and shortcomings.

 

We seem to apply the same idea to a relationship with God, too.  We seem to think that God's love is influenced by our failures and shortcomings.  We think it is dependent on who we are and what we've done or not done.  We seem to think that we can alter His opinion of us by doing the right thing.

 

But having a list of 'dos and 'do nots' is religion.  Not relationship.

 

When it comes to a relationship with God, it's not about me.

 

When it comes to God's love, it's not about us or what we do or don't do.  It's about Him.

 

I recently read or heard (I can't remember which and, annoyingly, I can't remember where), an argument between two people about whether or not God could and would love them.  One of them said, "But you don't know me.  God couldn't love me.  Not after everything I've done."

 

This is something that many of us can relate to - it resounds deeply inside us.  You don't really know me - you don't know what I'm like.  If God knows everything about me, then He couldn't love me.  I'm not good enough.

 

But the second person in the above argument replied brilliantly: "You're right, I don't know you at all.  But I don't need to.  I know God.  And I know that He's a God who loves us relentlessly."

 

When it comes to a relationship with God, it starts and ends with Him.

"We love because He first loved us."

 

[1 John 4:19 NIV]

And

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

[1 John 4:9-10 NIV]

 

It doesn't start with us, and it doesn't depend on us.

 

It's not me.  It's You.

 

 

 

 

 

Do I Really Want To Be A Christian?

Whenever I say the words, "I'm a Christian," in my mind, I can't help silently adding "... Get me out of here!"

 

I blame ITV and the popular programme "I'm a Celebrity".

 

I am a Christian (Get me out of here!), but I don't know that I like the label 'Christian'.  Not because I want to hide what I believe or disguise it somehow, but because over time the word has become corrupted.

 

I think the meaning of 'Christian' is stuck in the 70s: long, untamed hair; rainbow guitar straps; rainbow/tie-dyed t-shirts; the iconic socks-and-sandals combo; people who are overly polite and yet hypocritical; incredibly judgmental and narrow-minded; and yet something of a pushover at the same time.

 

Think the ever-chipper, "Hi-diddly-doodly neighbours!" Ned Flanders in The Simpsons.

 

 

Someone detached from reality and a laughing-stock to most who know him.

 

And I find myself asking Do I really want to be a Christian?

 

If that is what being a Christian looks like, I'm out.

 

And what's more, this image of Christianity - of being a Christian - bears no resemblance whatsoever to Christ - the reason for our faith.

 

I love Jesus because He wasn't a Christian and He wasn't anything like the stereotype we have come to associate with the word "Christian" either.

 

He wasn't polite: He cared more about sharing life-giving truth with people than upsetting their feelings.  He wasn't hypocritical: He literally practised what He preached and loved people as He taught us to.  He wasn't judgmental and narrow-minded: in fact, He was accused of being too liberal by the religious leaders of His time.  He ate with prostitutes and let them wash His feet; He invited a scheming, friendless tax-collector for tea; He crossed social and religious and geographical boundaries when He chatted to a promiscuous, unmarried woman from Samaria.  He healed people who were sick or dying, regardless of whether it was the day of rest.

 

He valued people. 

 

Above all else, He loved and valued and cared for the people He came into contact with. 

 

He wasn't confined by rules or guidelines or rituals.  He was governed and motivated by love.

 

He wasn't controlled by religion.  He was moved by relationship.

 

That's what I want my life to look like, too.  Not the bad-hair, 70's style, stereotypical "Christian", but a life modelled on Christ.  A life which, like His, is motivated by relationship and governed by love.

 

"This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him.  This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.  My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other.  No one has seen God, ever.  But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!"

 

[1 John 4:8-12 MSG] 

 

 

Digital Photos and Forgiveness

I was discussing the way digital cameras and digital photos have altered our photographing experience with a friend earlier.  Not only have they altered the way we view photography, they also affect the way we see ourselves.

 

Gone are the days when we had to develop a whole roll of film just to see how many photos were actually 'usable'.  We had to sift through the blurred images, those with a thumb distorting most of the picture, the photos where the subject is off to the side or at an odd angle.  And the red eyes.

 

These days, we can instantly check our photos and see whether or not they 'measure up'.  If we're not completely satisfied and we don't feel that we look good enough, we can improve them and edit them and digitally manipulate them until we are happy.  And, if the worst comes to the worst, we can hit 'delete' and we can get rid of them. 

 

If there's anything we're not completely happy with, we can simply get rid of it.

 

I sometimes wish it was that easy in life, too.

 

But unfortunately we have to deal with the difficult and messy things in our lives along with the beautiful and air-brushed parts too - we can't simply delete the bits we don't like.

 

We can't.  But God can.

 

The Bible says that,

"He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.  For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.  He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west."

 

[Psalm 103:10-12 NLT]

 

He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

 

We can't 'delete' and remove the things that we don't like from our own lives, but when God looks at our lives, He doesn't keep a record of our wrongs - He doesn't keep all of the 'bad photos'. 

 

Instead, He looks on us with immeasurable and unfailing love and compassion. 

 

The Antidote to Fear

I rewatched 'Donnie Darko' today. 

 

I've only seen it once before and it was a long time ago, so I didn't remember much.  It is intricate and intriguing - if not rather odd - and is all about a boy who hallucinates and feels it is his responsibility to save the world.

 

One thing that really stood out for me whilst I was watching was a scene where one of Donnie's teachers draws a continuum across the blackboard (it's set in the 80s), with 'FEAR' on one side and 'LOVE' on the other.

 

Each pupil has to read out a scenario that they have been given and mark a cross on the line to show whether the action on their card is motivated by fear or love.

 

Everything we do, she says, is motivated by one or other of these emotions.

 

It got me thinking about how love and fear are opposites.  And it also made me consider what motivates me the most.

 

I know that a lot of the time, I am motivated by fear: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough, fear of being too much to handle, fear of missing out, fear of being 'found out'.

 

I am not motivated by love.

 

I haven't counted, but apparently the command "Do not fear" is repeated 366 times in the Bible.

 

That's a lot.

 

I think God wants something to sink in.

 

What's more, John writes,

"There is no fear in love."

 [1 John 4:18 NIV]

 

Fear and love are, as the teacher in 'Donnie Darko' pointed out so astutely, opposites.  They are mutually exclusive.  You cannot have both together.  

 

Fear is crippling and it stems from a feeling of being unaccepted or unloved.  Love is the antidote to fear.  Not love as a fluffy fuzzy feeling, but passionate, powerful proactive love, which lays itself down for us. 

 

The same verse in The Message reads,

"There is no room in love for fear.  Well-formed love banishes fear.  Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love."

 

I don't want a crippling, fearful life.  I want a life that is "fully formed in love".

 

 

 

 

You Can't Ask 'Why?'

I have just been to watch 'Anna Karenina' at an independent cinema. 

 

I wasn't particularly familiar with the storyline beforehand, but I enjoyed the film.  Especially the intricate and artistic sets and scenery, and the beautiful choreography.

 

Whilst I was watching, a couple of things really stood out: at one point in the film, Anna asks her lover why he loves her.  He replies by saying,

"You can't ask 'Why?' about love."

 

You can't ask 'Why?' about love.

 

This is something I really struggle with.  Both with God's love and with the love of other people.  I forever think that I have to give God and others a reason to love me - I have to earn their love somehow. 

 

Dr. Henry Cloud writes,

"Our 'lovability' rests on the ability of the one doing the loving, not on our merit [..] None of us deserves love that comes our way; we don't earn love.  It is given to us.  Approval can be earned, but love can't."

 

Nowhere is this seen more powerfully than in Jesus' death for us: He showed His love by dying and giving up His life for us, even whilst we were still living in rebellion against Him:

"When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.  Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good.  But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners."

 

[Romans 5:6-8 NLT] 

 

We don't deserve God's love.  We can do nothing to earn it.  But our 'lovability' doesn't depend on us, it depends on God.  And He is a God of love [1 John 4:16].

 

You can't ask 'Why?' about love.

 

He loves us because He loves us because He loves us.