On Being Loved

Well, here we go with some more about being loved. Just love this stuff. You guys can choose to believe my radical beliefs about the intense, deep love that God has for us or not. I know it's true.

So today I'm working for this friend of mine who has a dog. This dog is a great dog, a real, pure bred Great Pyrenees. Huge. Gi-flipping-gantic. Shaggy, white, big dog. Who doesn't know how to be loved.

This dog was apparently abused in its past life, with its previous owners, because he walks around on egg shells. This gigantic, fluffy, furry creation of God, made to love people and be loved by them --because he was abused, and taught fear instead of love-- does not know what to do. He looks out at you with a look of wondering... wondering whether or not he can trust you, and what you are going to do to him. It's the saddest freaking thing in the world.

He's afraid to move. He doesn't know where to go or what to do, because he doesn't know how we, people, his authority figures, are going to react to Him. He is afraid. Of us. Of his owner. Of the very people who brought him to ourselves in the first place, adopted him from the hurtful situations he used to live in, adopted him to be our own, out of love. But because He's been so conditioned to think incorrectly, he responds to our acts of love with fear.

And I believe that the greatest tragedy and mistake that religion in this world makes is to teach fear instead of love. Because fear is not of God. It never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, has been. I don't care what you read in the Bible, or what you see in your life, or what you mistakenly think about Him. He is love. Period. And the greatest tragedy on this earth is the lies that get put on His name. All the fear that gets put on people in his name. There is no greater tragedy in this world, and no greater disservice that religion can do.

I say to all you people out there who are in positions of religious leadership, it must be about love. It all must come back to love. If I have not love I am nothing. nothing. I am nothing without love. When it's all gone, and this whole flipping world is rolled up into a ball and tossed into the recycle bin, and we're all standing there, naked and ashamed, yet perfectly loved, for the first time in our long lives, there is going to be one thing left over. One thing that encompasses all other things, that qualifies all other things, and that judges all other things. And that is going to be love.

So back to this dog. This great big, lovable, huggable ball of fur that you look at and just want to hug, trembles whenever you walk by him. He looks up at you like you are going to hurt him. This is what we look like to God. He created us, just like we are, so He could love us, but because we've been conditioned so long, outside of the church and inside of it, to fear, HE'S NOT ABLE TO LOVE US. Because we don't know how to let Him. This is a tragedy! There are a lot of tragedys in the world, but this is the greatest one of them all. A God who is just dying to saturate us with His love, but who can't because we don't know how to let Him.

Because we don't see it as love! I try to talk soothingly to the dog, and he doesn't know what to make of it. Because he's been conditioned. I know that my only motive in my heart is to love on him, and hug him, and squeeze him and call him George, but he doesn't know it and therefore can't see it, and therefore can't receive it!! God says stuff to us, and because of our conditioning, we think we need to be afraid of Him and so tell others. We pass our fear around. I try to discipline the dog, for his own good, AND HE IS AFRAID. WHEN WHAT HE REALLY NEEDS IS TO TRUST ME SO HE DOESN'T GET HURT. And you can't trust someone that you are afraid of. Fear and trust are like oil and water. They CANNOT mix! So because he (the dog) can't see it, because of his bad training, he doesn't listen -- and so gets hurt.

My heart is breaking writing this blog. I'm a human. How do you think God feels about us, about the people in the church, about the people outside of the church, about the whole world, all of the time?? I've had to learn this through experience. I'm candidate number one for this message. But it's a message we ALL desperately need to hear.

God loves you. I don't care who you are. Jesus, yes, Jesus Christ loves you.

Is anybody getting this? You need to be loved. More than anything else in the world, more than any amount of work you can do, more than any amount of service you can perform for Him, more than any amount of self degradation... you need to be loved!