There’s something troubling about the way we live our lives these days. We don't take the time to rest anymore. Everything we do has a frantic quality – the way we eat, the way we shop, the way we work, and especially the way we treat each other. Even in moments when we do slow down we reach for our social media devices to keep track of what other people are saying. Our ever-present cell phones have replaced normal face to face discourse and enable us to lash out anonymously, and, if we choose, angrily at anyone on the planet. We are consumed by a deep need that isn’t being met and is causing us to fill our lives with busy-ness and clutter which results in more and more stress. Why do we have such a compulsive need for validation from the things of this world? The Church tells us God’s love is sufficient.
Augustine of Hippo said it this way. “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” He said that in the 4th century when the Church was still in its infancy. It is now the 21st century. There are 8.1 billion people in the world - including 2.1 billion Christians - who are more rest-less than ever before. If God’s love is sufficient why is it so difficult for us to experience it?
I can’t speak for the rest of the 2.1 billion Christians, but I can say why I didn’t experience it. I wasn’t sure I deserved it. I feared God’s punishment more than I felt his love. Sister St. Lawrence indelibly planted that in me in the fifth grade when she told me I would burn in hell because I ate a ham sandwich on Friday. All through my school years I was reminded that God’s wrath was a terrible thing to face. It was no use thinking I might be spared. Psalm 14:3 says, “There is none who does good. Not even one.”
As an adult I became interested in Jesus and the idea that his saving grace could pay the price for my sinful nature. Certainly I would find my rest there. I became a born-again, water-baptized, spirit-filled, bible-reading, church-going, home group-hosting, worship-leading, 10%-tithing, mission field-experienced “new creation”. But it still wasn’t enough. When Bible teachers remind us that our “righteous acts are like filthy rags in the eyes of God”, how is it possible for anyone to feel sure about his love? As Neale Donald Walsch has so correctly said, “You can't receive what you don't believe yourself worthy of”. If we can’t be sure about our standing with One who can send us to hell we will never cease trying to prove ourselves - to him, to ourselves, and to each other. This underlying anxiety about our unworthiness has lead the human race to competition, greed, corruption and intolerance, which brings even more feelings of unworthiness.
Conversely, when we discover our true identity in God we will know why we are naturally worthy of his love. Only then will we be able to receive it. This discovery is being born today and it is okay for us to receive it. The fire-breathing, ever-needy God of the Bible was a primitive understanding of our spiritual youth, necessary for a time maybe, but one that can now be safely put to rest.
