Square One

I haven't written in a while, and I apologize to all my loyal reader.  Yes, that was singular on purpose.  The problem is that I come up with ideas, topics cross my mind, or I realize something…but I never get the chance to solidify the thought.  And then I never write about it.  This is probably a symptom of a much deeper issue, but let's skip the therapy session for now.

This past weekend, the High School girls and I went on a retreat.  The theme of this retreat was called "iLove 2.0" and was focused on the fact that God truly loves us unconditionally.  In fact, the entire series was based on something called The Gospel Prayer:

"In Christ, there is nothing I can do that would make You love me more, and nothing I have done that makes You love me less. Your presence and approval are all I need for everlasting joy.  As You have been to me, so I will be to others.  As I pray and partake of Your body and Your blood, I'll measure Your compassion by the cross and Your power by the resurrection."

Although I'm pretty sure most of us never really digested anything beyond the first sentence, the simple truth of this prayer was eye-opening.  The biggest eye-opener for me personally was when our speaker recited the following verse: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matt 3:17)  Our speaker then asked if we believed this applied to us.  And honestly, I was like "um, no."  You see, even as an adult, I'm still scarred by my cultural upbringing that told me: "When you do good things, God is happy and He loves you.  When you do bad things, God is upset…"  Now, no one ever told me God didn't love me for something I did, but if you've ever interacted with people (and if you're alive, I think this applies to you), you've probably felt that someone (in this case, God Himself) didn't love you because of something you've done.  And that's a tough pill to unswallow.  So I was shocked when our speaker told us that God does in fact include us in Matthew 3:17.  We are His children, and He is pleased with us.  He will always be pleased with us.  Because He will always love us.  His love and approval are never contingent on what we do or don't do.  And when I stopped to really consider that (maybe for the first time in my life), it blew my mind.

I've tried for years to earn God's love.  I always felt that I had messed up our relationship by the awful things I'd done.  And from that point, I found that I was constantly trying to redeem myself.  I have to do this, I have to go here, I have to be this person to make up for every sin I've ever committed against God.  And if I want any blessing in my life, any good thing, I can never stop working.  Now, is it wrong to do good things?  Is it wrong to go to good places?  No.  But I was doing them for all the wrong reasons.  I was trying to earn a grace that was un-earnable.

Hopefully, this is old news to you, and I'm beating a dead horse.  Hopefully, you discovered this truth and were convicted of it years ago.  Hopefully, you're not like me.  But in the event that you are, I want you to take advantage of this time, the season of Lent, and try to understand what it means when God says He loves us unconditionally.  And hopefully, that will change everything else.  If you've given up 100 things for Lent and are finding yourself bitter and exhausted…think about why you gave them up in the first place.  You may even have to start at square one.  And it's ok, because you'll have company :)