“We can see God’s love only when we are willing to express it. We cannot find what we are looking for without realising who we are. I think of all the years I was struggling so hard to “find God,” not realising that I would see His love manifest in my own life only when I sought to make it manifest in the lives of others. Any wall we build to keep out others will keep God out of our conscious awareness. The only way to find His love is by giving it away.” [The Mystic Jesus: The Mind of Love by Marianne Williamson].

I read these words from Marianne Williamson in an Advent article. They touched upon my heart-felt desire to strongly convey the message of the never-ending LOVE story of Creation, Incarnation and Redemption which flames within me. It is the message of God’s unconditional, no-strings-attached LOVE for us. If I achieve this ONE thing, get this message across to readers, I will have achieved a major purpose of my life.

When I was a child, my image of God was different to what it is today. Based on scare tactics of the time, I believed God was ready to punish me when I stepped out of line, disobeyed my parents or teachers. If I was a real sinner God might just take me out with a thunderbolt of lightning and send me straight to hell.

Fortunately, truth prevailed and, at some point in my young life, I understood God to be a loving, merciful, compassionate Father. Perhaps it was through one of my favourite parables, the prodigal son [Luke 15:11-24], a parable more about the father than the two sons. The sons had their faults, both were selfish and self-centred and neither truly knew the heart of their father – his unconditional love, his faithfulness, his abundance, his accessibility, the depth of his understanding. We learn from all three characters, yet it is the father from whom we learn most.

Like the father in the parable, God surely does love us. Creation is an all-embracing, all-encompassing love story. God does not punish or allow bad things to happen to us. God is not some distant, watchful, controlling, punishing father. God is not fire and brimstone. God is LOVE.

“God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him … as he is, so are we in this world” [1 John 4:16-17].

In Psalm 8, David asks why God the Creator cares so much for us that we should be crowned “with glory and honour”? In his Letter to the Hebrews, St Paul repeats the question from the Psalm, before giving us the answer that God wants to draw us to Godself, to call us children of God and brothers and sisters to Jesus, who suffered and died for us.

“For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son ...” [John 3:16]. Jesus came to earth to serve, to show God’s true love to all. He did not spare himself in his care for others, revealing loving compassion and proving the extent of his love when he laid down his life, that we might be redeemed. An instrument of death – the Cross – is the greatest symbol of true love. Jesus gave ALL for us!

Spiritual writer and priest Henri J. M. Nouwen summarised God’s love for us: Jesus is the revelation of God’s unending, unconditional love for us human beings. Everything that Jesus has done, said, and undergone is meant to show us that the love we most long for is given to us by God, not because we deserved it, but because God is a God of love. [Letters to Marc about Jesus].

God is not somewhere ‘out there’. God lives intimately within our hearts, and in the heart of the world. With every breath we breathe, with every beat of our hearts, God is close and intimate with us. Life and love are given to us by God in God’s Son. God is the origin of love and the inspiration of all the love we have to offer.

St Paul reminds that “Nothing can separate us from His love; neither death nor life, neither angels nor heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below – there is nothing in all Creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Romans 8:39]

God is willing to do great things for us. There is nothing God hasn’t done for us; there is nothing God won’t do for us. Now that’s a truth to ponder and hold in our hearts and minds.

Have a golden day and treasure life!