This past weekend I was privileged to be the speaker for the annual men’s retreat of Redeemer Anglican Church in Richmond, well pastored by the Rev. Dan Marotta. It was sweet, my deepest memories are of the one on one conversations I got to enjoy. The topics were contemplation, silence, solitude, and Eucharist. And the retreat gave me the opportunity to share this insight from David Benner. Read it for _you_.
“I am convinced that God loves each and everyone of us with depth, persistence, and intensity beyond imagination. God doesn’t simply like you. Nor does God simply have warm sentimental feelings toward you just because you were created in the Divine image. The truth is that God loves you with what Hannah Hurnard calls ‘a passionate absorbed interest.’ God cannot help seeing you through the eyes of love.
Even more remarkable, God’s love for you has nothing to do with your behavior. Neither your faithlessness nor your unfaithfulness alters Divine love in the slightest degree. Like the father’s love in the parable of the prodigal son. Divine love is absolutely unconditional, unlimited, and unimaginably extravagant.
…Whether we realize it or not, our being is grounded in God’s love. The generative love of God was our origin. The embracing love of God sustains our existence. The inextinguishable love of God is the only hope for our fulfillment. Love is our identity and our calling, for we are children of Love. Created from love, of love and for love, our existence makes no sense apart from Divine love.”
(David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself)
Friend, what are you going through right now? What vexes you? What concerns you? What sin are you ashamed of? What are you struggling with? Whatever it is, know this: God is with you loving you. There is nothing that can stop the love of God in your direction. Gosh, this is good news…this is Gospel. Whatever you’re going through, ask this question for yourself as I ask it for myself: ‘How is God loving me in THIS?’