Saturday, January 14, 2012

Spiritual Exercises: "A Loved Sinner"

I've been working through some spiritual exercises that are modeled after Ignatius and what he took his followers through. Here's what I'm learning today:

102 (Loved Sinner):

I can’t understand God’s grace or love as a Holy God who would get Himself dirty to love us. It takes grace to understand grace.

It’s hard for me to admit I’m a poor sinner because I’m afraid of 1) being disarmed and unable to control what God sees when he chooses to love me and 2) being rejected for making mistakes. This is mostly why I resist God’s love.

When I resist, I’m like a prostitute who is being loved truly. I resist it, can’t believe it and reject it. I want limited, controlled, somewhat distant love. What I really want, however, is deep love for who I am, but I put my arms out to reject quite often.

God is for me, not ever against me. God is love. He started the reconciliation process between he and I. He also waits on the porch while we are away from home and then jumps off of it to come after us while we are slowly wandering on a road we hope will lead home. He embraces us with a passionate kiss, dirties his own clothes with that embrace and so confounds our understanding of how deep, far, wide and intense love is.

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