Love

I wanted to write this blog last night after our class at church when everything was still fresh but I just never managed to do it. So this is going to be kind of scattered, but we're gonna give it a go anyway.


Faith is an act of LOVE. 


I find myself dwelling on this abstract word of "love" recently. I love good music. I love my friends. I love my family. I love sunny days with a breeze. No matter how much I love these things my love for them is nothing with out action. Doing something about it. Acting upon it. This is a lesson I see over and over again in my own life. The lack of action. This absolutely includes my love and relationship with God.


I do in fact love God. I swear I do. And I know God loves me, after all, He IS love. The Orthodox church defines sin as (basically) a personal movement away from God, an act of self-will. This is different than many other denominations I've encountered where sin is much more of a breaking of a rule(s). No matter how much I suck (which is quite a bit these days), no matter how much I fight Him, no matter how unwilling I am to do the right thing, none of that has any effect on God's love for me. WOW. Even though I feel millions of miles away from Him right now I can rest assured that it wasn't Him who moved, who changed, it was me. God's love doesn't waver... Ever. 


Father Paul quoted a little bible passage last night (I believe from Revelation but I could be wrong) in which Christ says "I stand at the door and knock." I can hear it. It's interesting how although God works in mysterious ways and puts constant little reminders in my life (when I choose to see them) of His love but doesn't "force" Himself on me. He stands there, waiting. Faith is an act of love, a voluntary action, a virtue, a personal decision. So when am I going to act upon it? When is enough going to be enough? When will I start moving back towards God rather than spiraling away from Him? Sometimes I truly wish He would just force Himself on me, it would be SO much easier if I just had to do what I am supposed to do. To have a clear-cut, step by step, moment by moment instruction as to what exactly I am supposed to be doing and be pushed in that direction. But He doesn't work like that. And I can see why. God didn't create the Earth to have a bunch of zombie robots wandering around...


Ironically I know all these things, I truly do. I know it in my head but my heart, well, we're not there yet. I struggle so much with feelings of self-loathing, self-doubt... Why would God want ME? But I know He does. 


I was on the playground with Liam and another little boy I babysat yesterday reading a yoga magazine. I typically don't read a whole lot of the articles because a lot of it is weird, new-agey spiritual gunk that I don't really put any stock in. But I started reading this article about how yoga "changes" a person. As I was reading it I found it all incredibly weird that these were things people attribute to yoga but I found that it really spoke to me about God. I had one of those "ah-ha" moments as Oprah would say. Coming to God is a transformational experience. But where I've been getting it wrong my entire life is in my hope that God would make me into a different person, a better person. The truth is, God doesn't change us into something we're not. He merely strips away all the junk and clutter in our lives to expose the person we are and always have been deep down inside. Who we really are. God loves me for me! The me that's hidden somewhere below the self-loathing, guilt, bitterness, and anger. Because He knows me. He loves me for me. 


And that is profoundly beautiful.