Love For No Reason

God's perfect love is a love that does not love us because of our characteristics, our credentials. He did not choose to love us after we became a worthwhile object; after we achieved some milestone in life. God does not love us because we can speak and communicate with Him, God does not love us because we crack a good joke. God loved while He thought of an idea of a person that was you, and then and there you were.

God chooses to love us, for no reason of our own making, for no status or identity we have, seemingly randomly, for no reason. Except that we are made by Him, as we are ‘made’ by our parents; the love and affection of that ‘unchosen’ relationship, and in God’s case that He is responsible for the very idea of ourselves- for inventing in His mind our character. There is no choice of anyone except the lover: God chose our character, chose our quirks, and thus He made us. His Perfect Thought invented us.

So no man may boast; no one of us is greater than another; (we are worthy for the same reason, we are special, for we are God’s creatures) no more worthy of God’s love for any reason imaginable except that we are God’s creation, His humans, creatures.

We may not make God love us any more than He already does because the righteousness of Christ is the perfection by which we could even love, and it is placed on us, like a film, a lens, if a lens could instead be applied to the object seen.

One cannot be more accepted than we already are- there is no more deserving we can achieve. It is simply not there.

No one truly deserves particular, special love (in the sense of a higher degree of love than other people deserve). We merely are taken with someone, and allow ourselves subconsciously to love the object.

Affection happens without our choosing, accidentally. In a sense, we should not confuse our affection with the object’s deserving.

Because in love we were conceived (in God's passionate interest in thinking out, for His pleasure, a person like each of us), we cannot earn love from God. He came up with the complete and perfect understanding of us when He thought of us. He knew us completely, because He made that Complete Self in all its facets, in all its quirks. You can do nothing to deserve more love than that Idea deserved when He thought of it.

And He loves the idea of you. He loves to think about the characteristics of you. You are interesting to Him, you are beautiful to Him like a wonderfully harmonised symphony. Your parts move in coordination, in a complex dance together; the parts balance each other, the facets play together like beautiful lights shining through a stained glass. You can be no more glorious than He pictured you when He first conceived the idea of you: He knew all your glory right then and there. And He let it out to play in this world. He wants to see you bounce off of reality, bounce off of others, because He thinks you will add a lovely element, shade, flavour to all the interactions you have with things and people.

You Want Control? Here is Fear.

I have been in denial that I am a creature of fear. I have tried to cope with the complex problems I invented by denying that I am afraid. I am even afraid to be afraid; I imagine that being afraid will trap me, which is true. But I feared to share my fear- I feared to seem weak. I do very much wish to seem strong. It is easy for me to keep that illusion when my life is much the same, from day to day, week to week, year to year. So safe from any crazy curve balls that could be thrown at me. And always I am looking at others to learn what curve balls may come my way, always seeing what I could come into contact with and mentally acquainting myself with those things so they cannot overwhelm me.

I will not drown. I will not be trapped. I can do this; I can do anything.

When I am most depressed, it's due to fear - the future is closed, I feel stuck. Trapped. All my limbs bound, things pressing in on me, stifling the air, suffocating me. The choices I wish to take are mere illusion... the future is dead; it can only ever go downhill. All that is darkest is most real. The only future I can see is one of problems here, and problems there, and that future is a stifling, dead, joyless, empty, dystopian thing.

I live constantly gearing up, alert, on the edge of my seat, eyes wide open, my mind fighting for certain outcomes, even in my dreams. I learn from others' experiences so I might have 'the best future,' never, it seems, merely for the fun of learning about others. Do I really care about other people? I highly doubt it, except in those blissful moments when God seems to have reached through me and is using my body and mind and heart to do His will in others' lives.

I know what hell I have made for myself, but if every single area of life is an area where things are not happening 'as they ought to,' it is hard, ever so hard, not to exert control over that part of your life. So hard not to wrap your mind around that thing and make yourself acquainted with the ins and outs of it, as your mind sees it, and make yourself bear the thing. Iron grip. Grasping, grasping, squeezing the thing to death- 'I will not let you do what I do not want; if you insist on doing it, I will make myself used to you. I will not be denied.'

I live in fear because I imagine I can control. It is not a free life. It is not what God would intend for any of us. He wishes us to be free of care because we trust in Him... I am clearly in no way trusting in Him. It seems that even by understanding this situation of control and fear, I am yet again controlling, and yet again afraid. I fear my own case of control because I also know what that will cause, so I wish to control it and prevent future control...

...by CONTROLLING.

God's Glory Frightens Us

Is our fear of God about His glory? 

Are we terrified of the expansiveness and greatness of His glory, His beauty? Are we terrified of encountering the True One, the only Person who is Perfect and True, the only One with integrity, the only One who is consistent, the only One who cannot lie, and to Whom all lies are the greatest affront? Are we terrified of seeing our depravity thrown naked by seeing the perfectness of Him? The contrast between Him and our state would humble us. 

We do not like really to be told we are wrong. It’s a little easier to bear being shown wrong by imperfect humans; there we have the gratification of knowing that they’re not all they’re cracked up to be, either- in them we see ourselves, which is perhaps one reason why when they show themselves better than we ourselves, we are resentful of it, and angry at ourselves- they shouldn’t be any better than we are. 

But when we are faced with the Perfect, we have no escape in judging that One, except in a rebellious, temperamental fit.

My Fight with Complexity

I have had a bit of a journey to deal with complexity for various reasons. I realised this example can serve as an introduction into how I look at life, how I navigate it. A big piece is self-control- I had to learn it or I was not going to be able to have what I wanted at all out of life. The question that was basically posed to me as a child was- do you want Life or do you want to be miserable in the future? The only way not to be miserable was self-control and self-denial. Meekness, which I wrote about earlier, relates to this, and why I posted that was because of how passionate I am about godly self-discipline.

I have found over time from others and myself that I can be rather vague in communication. Perhaps part of it was my automatic assumption that things are quite basic; that all in life boils down to simple things. It became evident in childhood that I had the tendency to leave out important information when I was figuring out how to do daily tasks best. Because I was made fun of for it, I made myself figure out how to deal with the complexity of life (also important when your family is intellectually-inclined and you want to be In On It). If I figured out how to manage the complexity, I would be able to explain myself better- I found I was often missing the mark in explaining myself. My ideas don't go away if other people disagree, unless they managed to disprove it.

So I realised, by the word of wise people and vicarious experience, that it's safest to view complexity as reality and to face it if you want to live with ease, be happy in the long run, and all that jazz. The road to simplicity has to go through complexity; a little syrup boils down from a lot of sap. 

I thought then, if I enter into and live in the metaphorical hurricane of so-much-conflicting-information, maybe one day it will feel like my feet are on solid ground- I will get used to the chaos. Picturing it somewhat like this was how I reconciled myself to putting myself through all the rigmarole I still do put myself through. I forced myself to 'enter the hurricane' as a child, putting one leaden foot in front of the other, and gained habit, momentum. I am fascinated by mind-numbing hard-core self-work since I think it is the only way to live better, wiser- it is the way to pave the future that I want.

I was not allowed to get away with any simplistic notions as a child. I want to hate that, but it's not worth hating reality (I know from what many wise people said, it doesn't make things easier). I decided quite young that I was going to, even if it was the last thing I did, love how things actually are, however hard it is. I just decided. I will keep asking if I am facing things, I will keep reassessing. The hardest things to do are also the most rewarding, even emotionally. I had some moments as a teenager of incredible euphoria, seeing how it all was working out, like a vision. Most of life is a drudge, full of impatience, but the only way to be truly happy is to do what has to be done, and eventually you become used to it, and it becomes life-giving.