More of the book....

I hope y'all don't get tired of me sharing this amazing book. I certainly hope even more that you'll go and get your own copy. I'm telling you that it's truly transforming me. The Lord is using it to speak to me with almost every line. It's almost like I feel Him reading it to me, speaking my name. I don't usually gush over books like this - well y'all know I'm a bit on the dramatic side, but still - but this really is an incredible book. Go get you one!

So today we're talking more about our self-hatred and how it affects God.
"The sorrow of God lies in our fear of Him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. He anguishes over our self-absorption and self-sufficiency." OUCH!! Do you get that? I mean Elohim, Jehovah, the El Elyon - in anguish over ME? Wow. "He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to him. He grieves that we have forgotten him. He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. He longs for our presence." Does that sound like someone who can't accept you as you are? Like someone who couldn't possibly love you/me because..........(fill in whatever you like there)? Like someone who wouldn't do ANYTHING in your best interest? Like someone who doesn't understand you? I think not!

Manning quotes Thomas Merton here with, "Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon." Manning adds, "God calls us to stop hiding and come openly to Him. God is the father who ran to His prodigal son when he came limping home. (But) God loves who we really are - whether we like it or not. God calls us, as He did Adam, to come out of hiding. No amount of spiritual makeup can render us more presentable to Him." LAND SAKES! Someone wants to say "There is no God like Jehovah!"

Y'all I certainly hope that you read these words and realize that God loves you/me with an everlasting, unconditional, all sufficient love. He longs to show it. He longs to give it. He aches when we see ourselves as unworthy when He allowed His Son to die to make us worthy of it. Stay strong! You're worth it!!