Grasping the impossible
At this point in my life, I have a lot of trouble grasping or internalizing the idea that God loves me in an individually meaningful way.
God spends most of the OT actively dealing with nations, and occasionally giving personal treatment to his prophets, who were pretty incredible guys.
Obviously, an underlying theme of the gospels is that all of the disciples were pretty ordinary guys who had the potential to become all sorts of great things, and, obviously, all humans have the same potential for great things. Nobody has a corner on the market for specialness.
Many atheists will scoff, "oh, you want me to believe that the skygod pays particular attention to what I want?" And this is a fair scoff. Humans want a lot of things that they're probably better off not having, and they often pray desperately for things that never happen. It's often very unclear what prayer is for, or who it's for...though to be just as fair, many people don't really bother praying at all until they really need that one thing, and when they don't get that one thing, they decide the whole thing is a sham...even though, once again, general tradition seems to insist that people who actively pray a lot (steadily) get a much better idea of the character and nature of God when they pray.
I.e., if your experience with God is that the one time you tried to treat Him like a vending machine, he didn't respond according to your order, you may have a less than complete experience.
Which still goes on to say...I've seen God at work in things, I've seen things defy coincidence over time in a way where, I can see that it's personally significant, but if you wanted to sit there and debunk my life to coincidence in your own mind, you'd probably be free to. I can't prove my life to you.
Which also goes to say that in my own life...I have a great deal of trouble feeling or experiencing the love of God. I get automatically suspicious when people tell me that it's because I don't pray enough, or read the bible enough, or practice gratitude enough, because it seems that you could practice a relatively infinite amount of all of those things, and still run just as dry. Which doesn't mean that I shouldn't do them at all, and honestly, that's been more the case in my life. So...some effort is likely required.
But I've seen a lot of very unhealthy "all or nothing" theology in my lifetime that bears very poorly on the idea that God is love, because a lot of the "all or nothing" theology directly denies the image of Christ in people. People will be quick to point out how Christ died on the cross, but seem to ignore that Christ spent a lot of time off on his own praying to God, which he seemed to take a great deal of comfort and satisfaction in.
I think that it's highly arguable that a lot of my lack of relative trust or love for God comes directly from my active mistrust of Christians. Because I generally perceive of God's people as unlikely to love or accept me, and part of our essential experience as humans is communal, I have trouble perceiving God as things that I can't perceive the Church, his people, as.
Not that I haven't met loving or trustworthy Christians. But Christians who actively try to act that way in a meaningful, humble way, are the exception rather than the rule. Most Christians are nice people until it comes to something that they want, especially here in America.
Though at the same time, that directly convicts me that if I'm only defining God's love for me in terms of how I get what I want...I'm no different than anybody else, and perhaps have very little to complain about.
Ah, the lovely paradoxes.
God spends most of the OT actively dealing with nations, and occasionally giving personal treatment to his prophets, who were pretty incredible guys.
Obviously, an underlying theme of the gospels is that all of the disciples were pretty ordinary guys who had the potential to become all sorts of great things, and, obviously, all humans have the same potential for great things. Nobody has a corner on the market for specialness.
Many atheists will scoff, "oh, you want me to believe that the skygod pays particular attention to what I want?" And this is a fair scoff. Humans want a lot of things that they're probably better off not having, and they often pray desperately for things that never happen. It's often very unclear what prayer is for, or who it's for...though to be just as fair, many people don't really bother praying at all until they really need that one thing, and when they don't get that one thing, they decide the whole thing is a sham...even though, once again, general tradition seems to insist that people who actively pray a lot (steadily) get a much better idea of the character and nature of God when they pray.
I.e., if your experience with God is that the one time you tried to treat Him like a vending machine, he didn't respond according to your order, you may have a less than complete experience.
Which still goes on to say...I've seen God at work in things, I've seen things defy coincidence over time in a way where, I can see that it's personally significant, but if you wanted to sit there and debunk my life to coincidence in your own mind, you'd probably be free to. I can't prove my life to you.
Which also goes to say that in my own life...I have a great deal of trouble feeling or experiencing the love of God. I get automatically suspicious when people tell me that it's because I don't pray enough, or read the bible enough, or practice gratitude enough, because it seems that you could practice a relatively infinite amount of all of those things, and still run just as dry. Which doesn't mean that I shouldn't do them at all, and honestly, that's been more the case in my life. So...some effort is likely required.
But I've seen a lot of very unhealthy "all or nothing" theology in my lifetime that bears very poorly on the idea that God is love, because a lot of the "all or nothing" theology directly denies the image of Christ in people. People will be quick to point out how Christ died on the cross, but seem to ignore that Christ spent a lot of time off on his own praying to God, which he seemed to take a great deal of comfort and satisfaction in.
I think that it's highly arguable that a lot of my lack of relative trust or love for God comes directly from my active mistrust of Christians. Because I generally perceive of God's people as unlikely to love or accept me, and part of our essential experience as humans is communal, I have trouble perceiving God as things that I can't perceive the Church, his people, as.
Not that I haven't met loving or trustworthy Christians. But Christians who actively try to act that way in a meaningful, humble way, are the exception rather than the rule. Most Christians are nice people until it comes to something that they want, especially here in America.
Though at the same time, that directly convicts me that if I'm only defining God's love for me in terms of how I get what I want...I'm no different than anybody else, and perhaps have very little to complain about.
Ah, the lovely paradoxes.