“CONDITIONAL LOVE FOR GOD?”
“In what ways is my love of the Father God conditional?” (From the “3-Minute Retreat” for August 30, 2017.)
We all want to be loved unconditionally. This is a human desire, even a human need.
My wife does an overwhelmingly good job of this most of the time. Even she struggles with it at times. (This says more about me than it says about her. I am not the easiest person in the world to love. I know this: I’ve trying to do it for decades!)
Rumor has it that only God can and does love us unconditionally. (See Romans 5:6-11 for further details.)
But the “3-Minute Retreat” for today introduced a different question: Do I love God unconditionally?
A good question is a burning bush ablaze with the Glory of God. This question is such a bush.
“God, I will love you, IF you meet all my needs.
“God, I will love you, IF you give me everything I want.”
“God, I will love you, IF you will heal me.”
“God, I will love you, IF you will get me out of this mess.”
And so on it goes. I want God and other people to love me unconditionally, but I don’t want to extend the same courtesy to God and other people. And, of course, if I start putting conditions on loving people or God, I am not loving people or God as they are. I’m only loving my own idea of what people and God should be like. In other words, I’m loving (if you can even call it loving) an illusion.
So, how do I love God unconditionally? I don’t know, but I need to figure this out. It seems to me to be a pretty important question.
I don’t have any insights, but I do have some suspicions.
Suspicion # 1: I can begin by realizing how conditional my love for God and other people really it. An awareness of reality is no place to end, but it is a wonderful place to begin.
Suspicion # 2: If I marinate in the unconditional love of God regularly, I might pick up some of that unconditional flavor. “We love God, because he first loved us,” says John (1 John 4:19).
Suspicion # 3: If I practice attempting to give to others and to receive from others unconditional love, I will be in a better position to both receive unconditional love from God, and love God unconditionally in return. Right after 1 John 4:19, John talks about the need for us to love our brothers and sisters. It would appear that being loved by God, loving God, and loving other people are all of one piece.
Suspicion # 4: Unconditional love can be learned. Unconditional love is a muscle that can be conditioned. Unconditional love may originate in Heaven, but it won’t drop on me out of the skies.
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