God Loves Us Like That

Henri Nouwen is a writer whose work strikes a chord with me. With humility, compassion, and authenticity he writes about the deeper topics of spiritual disciplines, spiritual formation, God’s love, solitude, and self examination - topics that are close to my heart. Recently I read a devotional excerpt from page 100 of Henri Nouwen’s book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, in which he asks three questions:

“How am I to let myself be found by God?”

“How am I to let myself be known by God?”

“How am I to let myself be loved by God?” 

As I pondered these questions, I concluded that in order to let myself be found by God, I need to slow down my pace, to stop rushing and let him catch up with me. In order to let myself be known by God, I need to sit down. In other words, not just slow down, but stop and be still so as to commune with God, both praying and listening. And, in order to let myself be loved by God, I need to release my compulsion to manage everything, and like a little child, simply climb up into his arms to rest. 

If there is one thing that contributes to our feeling unloved in this life, it’s the world's emphasis on performance and the glorification of staying busy. A work ethic that defines us as human resources rather than human beings is out of balance and unhealthy. The world trains our culture to associate personal value with production and achievement, prioritizing what we do rather than who we are.

We are caught up in an addictive cycle of moving from thing to thing - working to pay our bills, sitting in commuter traffic, keeping the dishes done, grabbing a meal for the family, throwing in a load of laundry, volunteering in the community, preparing our Sunday School lesson, putting out “fires”. The list is endless. We are kept busy. Life is a rush. It is considered preferable to be active and involved. Even in the aftershock of a loved one’s death, well-meaning people urge us to get out and stay busy because it would be “bad” to

be alone. We might wallow in our grief and sink into a dark place, and that would be risky. The remedy, according to the world, is to keep our minds occupied - get back into a routine. That way we don’t have time to think or feel too much. And so we remain shallow, racing around on a circuit board, never slowing down enough to acknowledge that yawning cavern inside. We are empty, starved for the nourishment of love and authenticity. We have become like the robots we create - high performance, full of facts, but soulless.

Like Pinocchio, we are wooden puppets, who, like him, long to be a “real boy.” And just as in that old children’s story, deep inside we know the truth that what makes us real is not all these things we do. To be real is to be loved for who we are. 

How many of us are brave enough to acknowledge this spirit hunger for genuine love? Or are we too afraid to step off the track and look into the face of our inner child? To acknowledge the desperate look in his eyes, pleading with our driven adult self to recognize and value that vulnerable little person at the core of who we truly are? The child within each of us yearns to be held in the quiet without any expectations or pressures. Our true self longs for the busyness to cease, like the holy stillness that pervades the forest after a storm dies down. In the hush there is rest. We sense a primordial sigh expanding our lungs as we are relieved from the bondage of constant activity, and our perpetual state of agitation at last subsides. There is space to be and to be known. Space to be with someone who loves us and values our company, shares comfortable silence, is content with presence, and allows room for intimate conversation.

Why are we out of touch with this essential need to be who we are - to be unguarded and present with each other? This kind of settled contentment often eludes our adult existence, and although we might think this is the bitter pill of our modern culture, in reality, it has troubled humanity for thousands of years. Since God’s meandering garden walks with Adam and Eve through Eden were interrupted by sin, people began the patterns of consumption in order to survive. They had chosen self, but ironically, the deceitful consequence of this choice was that their true selves would be stuffed down beneath the cares and responsibilities of self-reliance. They traded walks with God in the Garden for working by the sweat of their brow.

Since then humanity has struggled to make its way back to the Creator - to be with him in that trusting relationship, unencumbered by self-consciousness, repression, and the compulsive entrapments of society. King David voiced these feelings in Psalm 131 when he described his relationship with God as a weaned child with its mother, calmed, quieted, and content. The lesson in this simile is to contrast the infant who seeks his mother for physical nourishment - a source of life-giving food - with a small child who has been weaned. The weaned child seeks his mother for comfort, security, and reassurance.

"But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content." -  Psalm 131:2

Recently, while visiting a friend, we sat talking on the sofa in her home. My friend’s littlest girl, a toddler, climbed up onto her mother’s arm, falling asleep on her shoulder. That tiny girl was completely content. She knew she had a secure, cozy place to fall asleep. There wasn’t a more comforting or safe place in all the world than her mother’s shoulder. She had no mental awareness of an agenda to follow, chores to perform, not even any corrections to be made. No worries. All this little girl knew during that precious hour was rest and love. She was a weaned child with her mother.

God loves us like that. We don’t have to perform to earn his love. We can rest from all the doing because God really just wants our hearts - our trust, our dependence, our contentment, our delight. God wants to feel the weight of our hearts resting contentedly on him…just like a mother loves the weight of the warm little body of her toddler resting in her arms. When a mother knows she is the safest place in the world for her child, it is a holy experience.  God longs to be that for us, that Person with whom our true self - our inner childlike spirit - can be authentic, treasured, and valued. God yearns to be WITH us. But often he waits alone while we bury our ache for him and hurry through life, busy, broken, and hollow. If this is how God loves us. Why don’t we let him? Why don’t we let him find us, know us, and love us?

“I have loved you with an everlasting love.  I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” - Jeremiah 31:3

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, we love you, but we have become lost in the world’s patterns, compelled to skate along on the surface of life, hardly giving you or ourselves any attention. Please find us. We want to be found by you. Let us be like a little child, trusting and unpretentious, unconcerned with position, prestige, or performance. Oh, how healing to release the tensions we subconsciously hold taut within ourselves, and, like a small child, allow the weight of our cares, burdens and emotions - our whole selves - to sink into you, our hideaway. You are the primal home of our hearts.

Ponder:

"For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children." - Romans 8:14-16

Practice:

Watch and listen to this music from Scripture Lullabies (It’s not just for children!)

Purchase online:

If you have been wounded by someone and struggle with the effects of being deprived of love, please read my essay, The Shard of Glass.

by Heather J. Willis, author