Why Limit God?

Forgiveness, God, Grace, Redemption, Universalism 0

But does the defeat of sin within the person take place only in the temporal realm, within time itself, while we live in this body? Why should it? If we are beings who live on after death, like the Bible seems to say, what makes us think that God limits the bestowing of eternal grace to one time period? Why can’t God extend the offer of grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation through Jesus even at judgment — when all will be laid bare, when all persons will see the extent of their sin and the extravagance of God’s love? If the effectiveness of Jesus’ work on our behalf extends even beyond the grave, that means that no one is ever beyond grace.

— Sharon L. Baker, Razing Hell, p. 107

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, August 5, 2023

Lost Sheep

Acceptance, Compassion, God, Redemption 0

What I think, my fellow second sons, is that we were told the truth. This story is for us. We are the prodigal son. But we are also the lost and hungry sheep. We have gone unfed, walked without rest, been chased by wolves, and our friends and leaders did not see our pain. But God, in big and little ways, has donned a shepherd’s cloak and come running after us. God, in big and little ways, has clambered over rocks and climbed down cliffs. God has found us, hungrier and more hurt and terrified, and cradled us close to say: No matter why you left or where you went, you are mine.

— Emmy Kegler, One Coin Found, p. 8

Photo: Above Gundersweiler, Germany, June 14, 1998

A Good Parent

God, Love 2

God does not lead the soul by shaming it, just as a good parent would not shame his or her child. It doesn’t work anyway. We all have done it at times and, if we were raised in a punitive way ourselves, we still tend to think that is the way to motivate people — by shaming them or making them feel guilty. I’ve done it enough and I’ve received it enough to know that it eventually backfires. It never works. We close down and stop trusting after that, and we use all kinds of defense mechanisms to avoid further vulnerability. God’s way actually works — to love us at even-deeper levels than we can know or love ourselves. It is really quite wonderful, and one wonders why anyone would want to miss out on this.

— Richard Rohr, Yes, And…, p. 101

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, May 10, 2023

Nothing Can Move the Dial

God, Love 0

We ask ourselves, what can move the dial on God’s love for us? Nothing. It is always at its highest setting. After all, God’s love for me is zero dependent on my love for God. But our notion of God can atrophy and get stuck in our own arrested development. And it can be hard to shake the transactional god who puts us in debt. The I-love-you, now-love-me-back god. Yet our God is utterly reliable in this unconditional love that does not waver. It has pleased God not to be God without us. God never has second thoughts about loving us. Never.

— Gregory Boyle, The Whole Language, p. 4-5

Photo: Oregon Coast, May 17, 2023

God’s Favorite!

God, Love 0

Human love is largely determined by the attractiveness of the object. When someone is nice, good, not high-maintenance, physically attractive, important, or has a nice personality, we find it much easier to give ourselves to them or to “like” them. That’s just the way we humans operate. We naturally live in what I call the meritocracy of quid pro quo. We must be taught by God and grace how to live in an economy of grace. Divine love is a love that operates in a quite unqualified way, without making distinctions between persons and seemingly without such a thing as personal preference. Anyone who receives divine love feels like God’s favorite in that moment! We don’t even have the capacity to imagine such a notion until we have received it! Divine love is received by surrender instead of any performance principle whatsoever.

— Richard Rohr, Yes, And…, p. 78

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, May 30, 2022

The Tender One

God, Grace 0

At one time or another, we all had a version of God that was rigid. But the depth of our own experience tells us that our idea of God wants to be fluid and evolving. As we grow, we learn to steer clear of the wrong God. We “break the jar” and it radically challenges our way of seeing reality. Consequently, a change in our conception of God can transform the character of our culture…. The Tender One has no need to judge, because this God understands.

If our God makes us feel unworthy and in debt, wrong God. If God frightens us, wrong God. If God is endlessly disappointed in us, wrong God. A man I knew, after being fired from his job, said, “It’s a good thing I believe in God, who says, ‘Vengeance will be mine.'” Uh-oh. Wrong God.

— Gregory Boyle, The Whole Language, p.4

Photo: Bluebell Trail, Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia, April 4, 2022

He First Loved Us.

Faith, God, Love 0

We can be gracious because we are grateful. We can love because we have been loved.

On the days when I believe, I know all this to be true. On the days when you believe, I hope you’ll know this to be true too. I hope you’ll feel deep within your heart and with every cell of your being that you are held and embraced by the God who made you, the God who redeemed you, and the God who accompanies you through every end and onward to every beginning.

Even on the days when I’m not sure I can believe it wholeheartedly, this is still the story I’m willing to be wrong about.

— Rachel Held Evans, Wholehearted Faith, p. 180-181

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 21, 2022

Cosmic Hope

God, Hope, Jesus 0

Christ Crucified is all the hidden, private, tragic pain of history made public and given over to God. Christ Resurrected is all suffering received, loved, and transformed by an all-caring God. How else could we have any kind of cosmic hope? How else would we not die of sadness for what humanity has done to itself and what we have done to one another?

The cross is the standing statement of what we do to one another and to ourselves. The resurrection is the standing statement of what God does to us in return.

— Richard Rohr, Yes, And…, p. 76

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 12, 2022

Already Yours

Core Value, God, Love 0

It can be difficult for those of us living in a culture that prizes earning power above nearly everything else to understand that in the economy of grace, the currency of deserved and undeserved is irrelevant. It is absolutely true that you can’t earn God’s love. But it’s not because you are a helpless wretch whose sin makes it impossible for God to even look at you or because you have done something so grievously wrong that your soul has been permanently stained, as if by spiritual Sharpie. The truth is, you can’t earn God’s love because you already have it. You can’t be any more loved than you are because God’s love has already been freely and abundantly given. You can’t do anything to achieve a greater portion of God’s love because God’s love for you is already unconditional and it is already infinite.

— Rachel Held Evans, Wholehearted Faith, p. 180

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 6, 2015

Enticed Through Love

God, Grace, Love 1

God always entices you through love.

You were probably taught that God would love you if and when you changed. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change, is the experience of love and acceptance itself. This is the engine of change. If the mystics say that one way, they say it a thousand ways. But, because most common religion has not been at the mystical level, you’ve been given an inferior message — that God loves you when you change (moralism). It puts it all back on you, which is the opposite of being saved. Moralism leads you back to navel-gazing and you can never succeed at that level. You are never holy enough, pure enough, refined enough, or loving enough. Whereas, when you fall into God’s mercy, when you fall into God’s great generosity, you find, seemingly from nowhere, this capacity to change. No one is more surprised than you are. You know it is a total gift.

— Richard Rohr, Yes, And. . ., page 18

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, January 4, 2022