TO FEAR GOD OR TO LOVE GOD

TO FEAR GOD OR TO LOVE GOD

            Today a vast number of Christians are full of fear of God. We are still trapped within a religion of rules (law) which Jesus abolished twenty centuries ago. He preached a God who was love itself and a liberation from the burden of the law. Sometimes our dealings with God are characterized by one big round of duties. This is the fear that brought and still brings many Catholics to mass on Sundays. I sometimes get an irrational feeling that if there were no commandments. I would be a saint. I’d feel so free and liberated – and I know I would keep every commandment spontaneously. One day a seminarian found himself saying to this God whom he was serving with all his heart and soul, “God, I really hate you. You are a kill-joy. I just cannot enjoy life while you are around, You won’t allow me to be as I am, You won’t leave me free.” Here, with whom lies the problem. The problem is certainly not with God but with us.

            We are not advocating the abolition of law (rules), but another understanding of it. Jesus proclaimed a God with whom we are to respond in love and freedom. A better understanding of God’s love for us is very important. A love that is unconditional. Have you observed the type of love a good mother has for her child? She doesn’t love him because he is good, she loves him because he is her son. She obviously wants him to be good, she wants him to improve. The mother of a criminal will want him to give up his evil ways. But, being a mother, she doesn’t stop to love him. She’ll not say, “First stop being a criminal and then I will love you.” She says, “I hate your criminal ways, but I still love you very intensely because you are my son.” If there is any hope of that boy changing, it is because of this unconditional love of his mother for him.

         Do we dare to think that this is the way God loves us? To preach this kind of God is a very dangerous business. People will tend to take advantage of His goodness. But that is the way with love. It takes the risk. It leaves itself vulnerable to being taken advantage of. And this is the risk that Jesus took when he showed us the true nature of his Father in heaven. So let us not love God out of fear, but fear God out of love.

 Sathish Paul