“God, what do you think about me?”

Excerpt from The Making Of An Ordinary Saint

“God, what do you think about me?” 

That was the lit­tle self-cen­tered ques­tion I kept ask­ing. Once I cre­at­ed enough space in the noise of my life to lis­ten, God answered. In the fol­low­ing years of lone­ly retreats and long walks and bike rides, my soul began to be bathed in his love. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, some­times the silence brought bore­dom and sad­ness; oth­er times I was just left sleepy and emp­ty. A cou­ple of times, I even wait­ed curled in the fetal posi­tion, tug­ging my hair and sob­bing. Yet through the years I occa­sion­al­ly entered into the holy hush of God’s love, and through the air drift­ed the whis­per of the most beau­ti­ful words:

Oh, lit­tle one, there you are — don’t run.
Rest.
It’s okay to rest.
You don’t have to always keep going.
I am already impressed.
Remem­ber I am for you.
I have always been.
I see how hard you try, how beat-up you feel, your mix of motives and lost dreams.
Just when you think you can’t get any low­er, I am there.
Under­neath your sad­ness and below the dark­ness of your heart, I am there.
Your bot­tom is my begin­ning.
When you hurt, I hurt,
and when you open your heart to love, I stand up and applaud.

As the years rolled by, I kept return­ing to the silence. I kept ask­ing, and I began to form my iden­ti­ty around the answer.

I start­ed see­ing glimpses of God’s uncon­di­tion­al love all around me.

I slow­ly stopped view­ing the Bible as a book I need­ed to under­stand, man­age, or defend, and I start­ed cul­ti­vat­ing a deep appre­ci­a­tion for it as the per­son­al sto­ries of a lov­ing Father reach­ing out to his chil­dren. When I moved beyond the cul­tur­al nuances, it unfold­ed as a divine­ly inspired and often trag­ic sto­ry of love.

I also began to see the cre­at­ed order as God’s first great book. Nature is the only book many through­out his­to­ry have been exposed to. It is a beau­ti­ful tapes­try declar­ing the mys­tery, good­ness, and love of God. Read­ing such a detailed and rich text seems to require only silence and prayer­ful listening.

I dug deep­er and uncov­ered God’s love echoed in the writ­ings and expe­ri­ences of two thou­sand years of faith­ful Christ fol­low­ers. I dis­cov­ered the words of Jean Pierre de Caus­saude: ​“The doc­trine of pure love can only be learnt by God’s action, not by any effort of our own spir­it.” ¹ And I came to cher­ish the wis­dom of Julian of Nor­wich: ​“God loved us before he made us; and his love has nev­er dimin­ished and nev­er shall.” ²

I real­ized I had been ask­ing the wrong ques­tions about the prodi­gal son. I believe that if he left he would be wel­comed back again and again. I began to under­stand that if the prodi­gal son knew the grace, love, and accep­tance of his father, he would nev­er want to leave.

I’m real­ly leery when any­one says they have a sin­gu­lar, sim­ple solu­tion to life’s prob­lems, but I have con­tin­u­al­ly found that a clear and deep know­ing of God’s love for me has been the key rem­e­dy I need­ed to untan­gle many of the prob­lems I faced. Whether it was resent­ments, guilt, rela­tion­al con­flict, obses­sive or con­trol­ling behav­iors, peo­ple pleas­ing, greed, lust, with­draw­ing, neg­a­tive self-talk, anger, or try­ing to find my iden­ti­ty in what I did or in oth­er peo­ple, these were all at least in part root­ed in my desire and striv­ing to be sig­nif­i­cant — to be loved.

Through the years, when I felt my actions didn’t mea­sure up or I strug­gled with sin, I found myself greet­ing my fail­ures with a gen­tle smile. I didn’t have to achieve or be per­fect. I am loved. Con­trary to what I had pre­vi­ous­ly thought, reck­less grace didn’t make me com­pla­cent. Being accept­ed just as I am moti­vat­ed me to give and to love. When I real­ized I didn’t have to strive, I found I want­ed to.

Peo­ple who know they are deeply loved by God are free to engage real­i­ty. Peo­ple who know they are deeply loved by God freely love others.

Grace. Uncon­di­tion­al love. Accep­tance. These truths are often absent from the com­po­si­tion of our com­mu­ni­ties, reli­gious or not.

Much could be said on this top­ic, and many oth­ers have artic­u­lat­ed it bet­ter than I can, but I have come to believe that God’s love is the cen­tral mes­sage of Chris­tian­i­ty, that liv­ing the king­dom life must be born out of an active response to a deep know­ing of one’s place as a much-loved daugh­ter or son of the Author of Life.

I’m accept­ed. I’m loved. I’m free to achieve and to fail. I don’t have to prove I’m wor­thy of love or for­give­ness. And so it is out of this cen­ter that I now approach the spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­plines. … If the spir­i­tu­al life doesn’t lead us to free­dom and grace, then we’ve prob­a­bly missed the point.