One of the things that we find so hard to grasp about God is the fact of His unconditional love. As we were challenged on Sunday to add love to our faith and to understand that that love is not just brotherly affection but is actually the same kind of love that God has, I have been meditating on His unconditional love.
Most of our lives as humans is spent understanding the relationship between cause and effect. We very soon learn the principle of ‘quid pro quo‘ (even if the Latin term comes later in our understanding!) This is all about one favour in return for another. If we do something for someone else, they will do something for us. “You scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours” is the popular saying reflecting the same principle!
God’s love is not like that, however. He loves us no matter what. He doesn’t just love us if we obey Him or if we respond or if we pray or if we accept that He loves us. He just loves us. And that same kind of love is totally liberating to us and is the measure of all true love. No conditions. No strings attached.
Wow! Such a simple thought, and yet one we find so hard to grasp and so difficult to reflect back to a world which really needs to see unconditional love in us in order to see it in God.