James B. Smith - Embracing the Love of God: The Path and Promise of Christian Life

And we are put on this earth a little space
that we may learn to bear the beams of love.

W ILLIAM B LAKE

I t was 4:00 A.M. and my six-month-old son was crying. It was time for his bottle and it was my turn to feed him. I went into the nursery, picked him up, cradled him in my arms, and gave him his bottle, which quickly calmed him down. As he lay in my lap, he looked up at me and smiled. Our eyes were fixed on one another. I welled up with a warm feeling of love.

I love you, Jacob, I said spontaneously. I only wish I could communicate that to you. I hope some day you will understand how much I love you.

Then it occurred to me: he already knows he is loved. Though he doesnt have the words to describe it or explain it, he feels it. Love is in the room, in my hands and arms as I hold him, in my words as I soothe him. It is written on my face. It is in my eyes. The same is true between God and ourselves. God said to Moses,

Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them, The L ORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace (Num. 6:2326).

God is essentially telling his people: When I look at you I smile, and I want you to know that.

I have come to believe that God is madly in love with us. God loves us with a passionate love. It is too great for us to comprehend; we do not have the words to describe it fully. It is too vast to grasp completely. But we can know it. And we can feel it. It is in his hands as he holds us. It is in his gentle words as he comforts us. It is written all over his face.

And yet, many of us feel alienated from God. We are a technologically advanced society, but our souls are sick. We seek help in psychotherapy, support groups, tarot cards, crystalsanything that will relieve the pain. But we find that these supposed sources of help are helpless. The emptiness will not be filled.

Weve had a hundred years of psychotherapyand the worlds getting worse, says James Hillman, a past president of the American Psychiatric Association. Tinkering with the psyche, searching through our past, and examining our behavior may provide personal illumination, but they do not ease our alienated soul.

His cry is the cry of all of us: make us sure there is a God of love. It is what we desire most, even if we do not have the words to express it.

One of the most difficult Christian doctrines to believe is the incredible value of human beings. It is difficult for many of us to accept Gods love, to believe that God looks upon us and smiles. It is hard, noted William Blake, to bear the beams of Gods love. We must learn to bear them. What we long to know is that we are loved. To be more specific, we hunger to know that we are accepted as we are, forgiven for all we have done, and cared for by a gracious, loving God. When we know this we walk away well.

Gods love comes down to us, fills our hearts, and is then extended to our neighbor. When we know and feel and experience Gods love we cannot but love ourselves. This kind of self-love is nothing like the cheap form of narcissism peddled in our culture. It is a genuine, comprehensive kind of love that is based not on what we do but on who we are.

When this love begins to penetrate our hearts, it will naturally flow out to those around us. Loving one another will be less difficult and more natural. When we realize we have been accepted as we are, we are enabled to accept others as they are. When we grasp that we have been forgiven for all that we have done, we find that we are empowered to forgive others for what they have done. When we comprehend that we are valued and cared for by God, we are provided the means to value and care for others.

When Jesus was asked to sum up the whole of the Law, he answered by coupling the great Deuteronomy edict about loving God (6:4) and the seemingly lesser law of Leviticus about loving your neighbor (19:8): You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind;