I just finished The Shack. My predominant emotions since then have been joy, contentment, and a new fullness of understanding. This book blew apart many of my notions of my faith and I continue to reel and ponder, not wanting to lose anything that I learned (I will begin rereading it soon to avoid further information loss!). For some, these revelations will be nothing new. For me, they were life changing.
My faith need not, should not, be about legalism. God’s love for me is not predicated on whether or not I follow the “rules.” While He gives me instruction to guide me, my inability to be perfect and follow all of them does not mean He loves me less. There is truly nothing I can do that will seperate me from His love for me. His love is not contingent on performance. What a relief – what freedom! I can get out of the box and stumble from time to time and He will be right there to pick me up with the same amount of love as always. I need not live in fear that He will forsake me because He simply won’t.
He knows exactly how many times I will fall before I learn a lesson. Each time I fall, He will remain faithful to love me and wait in expectation as I worked toward becoming the woman He is creating. It’s not a matter of Him sitting in Heaven – distance and accusing – hammering me for falling short. He knows I will yet He waits in love for me to return to Him, to be more and more like His Son.
I am loved just as a I am – unconditionally and without reservation. His love is what matters. It matters not whether my fellow humans love me, agree with me, or approve of me. That is such a revelation to me!! Again – the freedom I feel is overwhelming. To be able to remove the burden of expectation from those around me to give me value through their love, acceptance, and approval is an entirely new concept. All of my friends and family are off the hook. I have no expectations of them. I will allow them to be who they are as God molds them. I will be me – whom God is molding as well. I will remain here in the center of God’s love, basking in it, fully content because I don’t need them to love me. I only need His love and I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have His love always and unconditionally. All of this doesn’t mean I don’t want the love of those around me, but it no longer defines me nor directs my emotions.
Independence is the opposite of relationship. I am made to be in relationship and unity. As I strive for independence, I distance myself from God and others. He tells me to remain in Him and He will remain in me. That means putting aside my independence and staying near to Him. I have the perfect model of unity and relationship in the Trinity – Father, Son, Spirit are one yet seperate, working in perfect harmony, in relationship. He wants that with me, and for me among my human relationships too. Beautiful!
God is a verb, not a noun. He is action – repentance, confession, loving, serving, the practice of humility…. I often make Him a noun, a thing - a stagnant set of rules and expectations if you will - and kill off any hope of the Spirit moving in me. I want to live out loud, square in the middle of His love, loving and serving others. I don’t want to be bound by others expectations and get so bogged down in not being able to measure up that I forget that the most powerful thing I possess is the Spirit of God within me who makes me able.
As I reread what I’ve written here, I sense that it will probably seem somewhat radical or rebellious. I’m sure it will scare some of those that love me and may even push them away from me. Heck, it scares me too because it is so different than my notions of my faith in the past. But I do know that while I venture out to be who God wants me to be, He is with me always – I am never alone and I am loved completely.
With a Renewed Sense of Knowing Him —
Sue
