There is a thing that she and I haven't agreed on but has made me stop and really think about my own beliefs and why I believe them. I think this is a good thing to do, don't you? Dua believes that some of the bad stuff that happens to us, or to our loved ones, is a punishment for our behavior. She can even give some compelling contemporary examples.
I have never understood the thing about fearing God, although I admit the scriptures are rampant in the Old Testament. I haven't found anything like that in the new testament though; nothing since Jesus made his ultimate sacrifice for the sins of mankind. Everything I can find, everything I know, everything inside me, tells me that God Is Love.
I love my children and I punished them when it was needed. I learned this early with my first-born, strong-willed child: Spanking doesn't really work in the way we want it to. It always left me with a sense of frustration and shame that I had resorted to that, usually because I couldn't think of anything better at the time. I'm pretty sure God can think of something much more affective. While the swat would stop CJ's behavior it did not prevent it from happening again and it made for lots of anger from both of us and the effect was a power struggle.
When gentle Kevin came along it was very different. A light swat on his seat would just about broke his little heart. He seemed so humiliated and hurt. I do not believe that God wants to crush our spirit or cause us to shudder at the mention of his name.
Okay, so my point is : God is love. In fact, I believe that God is love in its purest form. I am a child of God - meaning: I'm God's and I'm still a child (spiritually-speaking), and have a lot to learn. He wants to teach me and help me grow and inspire me to be all I can be. He wants me to "get it" and do all the wonderful things he has planned for me but he knows all of my weaknesses (that go hand-in-hand with my strengths) and is patient with my failures and wanderings and distractions. He guides me with love, always that pure love that doesn't have to resort to showing me his power because he has no need to prove it. He is confident enough in his own omnipotence and feels no challenge when we question it.
Before I had children of my own I remember when my neice screamed at my sister-in-law "I HATE YOU!" I was shocked and horrified. Di calmly and lovingly wrapped her arms around Jodie and whispered "I know you hate me right now but I still love you." I think this is what God does with us. He loves us through it all.
That doesn't mean that he gives us everything we think we want. It doesn't mean he doesn't let horrible things happen. I think he even intentionally places roadblocks in our way sometimes to get us where we need to be. I'm not saying the challenges he gives us don't seem extremely harsh. I'm just saying his love is perfect and if we lean into it instead of away from it, he will hold us. He will use whatever is going on to strengthen us or get us to the place we need to be. That is not a punishment but a consequence. It might be a consequence of some decision of our own or of someone else or even of society; no matter. He will love us through it - holding us up if we will let him or standing right by our side if we try to turn away.
Dua is a prayer warrior and loves God with a faith and passion I can only dream about. She was raised Catholic so she comes from a different perspective of this life-long Methodist. It doesn't matter to me who is "right". We all see God from where we are, It's the only thing we can do. Some day when we are with God we'll figure it all out until then, I will keep trying to do what God meant me to do, be what God meant for me to be and get closer to him daily. Because - God is love - and ♪♫ all ya need is love ♫♪
1 Corinthians 13 (The Message)
The Way of Love
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. ♥
