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David Ford, a professor at Cambridge, asked a Catholic priest the most common problem he encountered in twenty years of hearing confession. With no hesitation the priest replied, "God." Very few of the parishioners he meets in confession behave as if God is a God of love, forgiveness, gentleness, and compassion. They see God as someone to cower before, not as someone like Jesus, worthy of our trust. Ford comments, "This is perhaps the hardest truth of any to grasp. Do we wake up every morning amazed that we are loved by God? Do we allow our day to be shaped by God's desire to relate to us?"
Reading Ford's questions, I realize that my image of God, more than anything else, determines my degree of honesty in prayer. Do I trust God with my naked self? Foolishly, I hide myself in fear that God will be displeased, though in fact the hiding may be what displeases God most. From my side, the wall seems like self-protection; from God's side it looks like lack of trust. In either case, the wall will keep us apart until I acknowledge my need and God's surpassing desire to meet it. When I finally approach God, in fear and trembling, I find not a tyrant, but a lover.
The apostle Paul prayed "that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." I doubt Paul prayed this prayer once only; for my part, I have to pray it every day. The most important purpose of prayer may be to let our true selves be loved by God.
============================[God] does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
remembers that we are dust.
Psalm 103:10-14
Okay, so the next chapter is titled "The God Who Is." Which, as I understand it, is basically the meaning of "Yahweh." I've been reading ahead, and I think I'm in way over my head. Sort of like I felt when I read (tried to) A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Well maybe not quite that out there. But sort of. Like I can get what it's saying for a flash, then it's gone.
I'm so glad God sometimes isn't that easy to "get." It's more intriguing this way, don't you think? And I have a feeling that "smart" on this world's terms means nothing when it comes to "getting" God. (See 1 Corinthians 2:14-16) I'm so thankful that God "gets" me, even when I don't fully "get" Him. He's my everything... And I live in the hope that one day I'm going to fully appreciate what that really means!
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