The Love of God

Isaiah 30:18a  
Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.

This was the first passage on which I meditated on October 4, 2011. In Muyskens' book(listed in previous post), he instructs the reader to spend 20 minutes in Centering Prayer.  Then you do a form of lectio divina(divine reading), where you meditate on a short passage of scripture and then journal the insights you received.  As I contemplated this passage, I realized that I could not comprehend a gracious and compassionate God. I had always struggled with the idea that God could love me.  My father was/is an alcoholic and although I knew he loved me, the love he expressed was conditional, and if I needed something from him he seemed put upon.  Now to be clear, I have learned to love and forgive my father and I am not trying to bash him.  Nevertheless, the love that he showed me did not make me think of a compassionate and loving God.  I decided to consider the love of my grandfathers, but my father's dad died when he was 4 and my mother's father died when I was 7.  Yet as I thought about my maternal grandfather I remembered an incident that occurred on my 7th birthday.  He was in a nursing home dying of colon cancer.  My mom, my 2 siblings, and I went to visit him, and my mom brought up the fact that it was my birthday.  He turned to my grandmother and instructed her to give me a dollar.  My grandmother had already fulfilled this duty and she promptly informed my grandpa of this fact.  To this he retorted, "Give him another dollar"! Which she begrudgingly did.  I realized the love of God in that one act of my grandpa.  He didn't have to give me another dollar.  It was purely an unconditional act of love.  I had always understood God's love from purely an intellectual basis, but I had never really felt it in my gut. Knowing that my grandpa could love me unconditionally enabled me to comprehend God as a gracious and compassionate Father.  Knowing the Love of God has changed me forever. I no longer despise or belittle myself because to do so is an affront to the God who loves me.  Thomas Keating, one of the co-founders of Centering prayer likens our quiet time with God as Divine Therapy.  When we consent to the presence and action of God within us, and remain still, his Holy Spirit is able to attend to the wounds received over a lifetime and bring healing.  That is what Centering Prayer is about, and this is why I intend to practice it for the rest of my life.


Peace be with you,
Adam