Two weeks ago I found myself at a half-day silent retreat. The Lenten theme was, appropriately, Jesus.

As always we were reminded that the time was for us to rest and be with God, that there was no requirement to do anything or follow the prompts on the retreat guide.

This always presents a challenge for me. I have many years in-built from schooling that says “I’ve been handed an assignment, and I must answer all the questions in the time allotted.” It’s a hard pattern to dislodge after decades spent in educational institutions.

One of our prayer reminders was:

“Try not to work. If you find yourself working at prayer, stop. Take a moment and breathe. Remember that God enjoys you, not your ‘perfected’ or spiritual you. The goal is simply time together.”

I have heard some version of this at almost every retreat I’ve been on. The first retreat of the Coracle Fellowship program, God Loves You… No, Really!, was a pivotal moment in my spiritual journey. To fully receive that God loves me, not just that he fulfilled a legal transaction, but that he loves the person he created me to be… that was radical.

Because it is.

And while I have a deeper knowing of God’s love since then, I have to say I still struggle with living and resting in that.

I’ll hazard a guess I am not alone. If we’re really honest, if we ask ourselves the question, we’ll probably find—at least I do—that what I’m actually thinking is that God is tolerating me. Sure, he loves me, but does he even like me?

Debatable. Highly debatable.

And why wouldn’t it be? Everything in me screams I am unlovable. Sometimes people have even told me so. And then there is everything around me—take any aspect of our culture—designed to highlight where I am deficient, where I am in need, what I need to change about my life to make me better, to make my body better, to make my life more comfortable, to find my passion, to create my own identity, and on and on and on… the voices inside and out are nonstop.

But God is neither simply tolerating me, nor waiting for me to get my act together, for him to love me and to be with me. He has given me an identity that I do not need to create.

It’s simple, and it’s also the hardest thing in the world.

Because if I really truly lived as though God loved me, I would have no choice but to radically love in return, in all areas of my life, every person I encounter.

And if all of us lived radically loving both self and other, what kind of world might we create?

Of course, this requires a supernatural force, to be clear. We can’t will ourselves into love. Jesus draws us. The Spirit works in us and through us, inspiring and enabling us.

But while we continue in this in-between time, between the already and the not yet, when we face our many imperfections, when we, as Paul, say “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do” (Romans 7:15)…still we also have this:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

Our retreat leader closed our day, with a reading of Patient Trust, by Teilhard de Chardin. I encourage you to take a few minutes, read this slowly, let it sink in. Spend a few minutes in silence with God. Read it again. Sit for a few minutes in silence. And read it again. Amen.

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.