The Profundity of God's Love

In my reading for one of my classes this year, there have been things that have truly helped me to obtain a better grasp on who God is, which is something that I apparently need, intellectually as well as spiritually. We are all called into a greater union with God, and in order to truly enter into such an intimate relationship, we need to know more about the other. God knows everything about us; He knows us better than we will ever know ourselves, and He loves us anyway. He loves all of us unconditionally. Isn't that profound, especially when we consider our true faces?

God sees what the world doesn't get to see; He deals with our temper tantrums, our begging, our pleading, and our refusals to obey. And yet He waits, He doesn't flinch, and He doesn't argue. All the argument comes from us.

Then the more I study for my class, the more I come to understand that sin is, as St. Thomas Aquinas defined it, really a rejection of God's love. It is a distrust in His promises, and such an act is painful more so to Him than to us; for He has a far greater understanding of what we're doing and He knows the real harm that is being done wheras we cannot even FATHOM the depths of even our own pain.

I have come to realize that even though I have this knowledge and now a greater understanding, it does not stop me from turning my back on God. Through this realization, I see how desperately I need a Savior, how desperately I must cling to Jesus because without Him, I would be completely lost.

There is such IRONY in us, the realization of which never fails to floor me. We human beings, ALL of us, are complete and utter hypocrites. We commit spiritual adultery.

We go back to the Garden of Eden, and we see that the serpent tempted Eve; he introduced distrust of God, and through that, Eve sinned in the rejection of His love. And that sin spread, didn't it?

The Bible is a love story; it is a continuous story about how God, the Lover Rejected, has continued to reach down to humanity repeatedly through covenants and miracles, trying to restore the relationship man rejected. It's about centuries upon centuries of stories of God in His infinite love, seeking to restore man to his former and always-intended dignity.

Yet have you noticed that it is not God who EVER rejected us?

It is WE who first rejected GOD, and it is WE who CONTINUE to reject God! Yet the very moment something does not go our way, what do we do but accuse God?

We blame God! We call GOD into question! We curse God! We reject His Love!

In other words, the more God does to restore our dignity, the more we struggle, the more we fight, and the more we reject Him.

All we really need to do is recognize who God is, stop having spiritual temper tantrums, and submit to His will for us.

And even now, though I've stated all of the above, I can't for the life of me figure out how to truly surrender to God.

I have come to realize that I'm in rebellion. Against what, exactly, I don't really know. But I have come to see that I am rebelling against God, and through this, God is not able to get through to the core - I simply won't let him.


Why is this so hard? Why can't I just let go and let God love me?


CREDITS:

* Top: Van Dyke, Betrayal of Christ, Baroque
* Lower Right: Mark Kostabi