Can God Hurt?

Unconditional love gives others the right to hurt us. (John Bevere, The Bait of Satan p.16)

I have heard that God loves me with unconditional love. I have accepted that with my mind. But after reading the above statement I felt confronted with some heart questions.

God, do You really love me with unconditional love?

That means that according to this You have given me the right to hurt You(?)

That doesn't compute with anything I feel about You in my mind. I can't even grasp that.

Then I heard God whispering to me.

Why do you find it hard to think that I give you the right to hurt me?

Well, I have to think about this and explore what is really going on deep inside.

That is hard – You know – to really get honest about my gut-level feelings, especially when they don't sound religiously correct. But I know it is very important to do it anyway.

Maybe I have a hard time believing this because I have never been able to imagine it even being possible that You would really hurt from anything I might do.

And why might that be?

Because..., well, maybe because I have secretly always thought You are so distant that You cannot be affected by anything I might think or do. Ah, now it is starting to come out a little more. I can see that I also have always maybe felt that You never cared about me enough to be hurt. I know I'm not supposed to say things like that, but that's what I am sensing I feel way down in the secret places that seldom see this much light.

And how does it feel to admit that so openly?

Well, from old tapes that play in my head my first reaction is that maybe You might get mad at me if I said I felt You don't care about me. But I have been learning a lot more about You over the past few years that makes me feel much safer to be honest now. That's the only reason I can even see this at all. So I guess I'm making progress, from assuming You will get angry at me for thinking bad about You to just feeling somewhat disconnected and not threatened so I can at least admit what has been inside all along.

So, God, You are leading me along in this conversation for some reason I'm sure. I think I know You well enough by now to perceive that. Where is this conversation taking our relationship? I actually get excited many times now when I sense You flushing out politically unacceptable answers from deep inside of me because these things are exposed as lies and are being removed from interfering with our growing intimacy. Please continue to show me more of what is blocking me from really feeling that You actually do care about me instead of just accepting those things as facts with my intellect.

And in the meantime, I really do thank You for being so patient with me and for pressing me repeatedly to get more real with You and with myself. I really do want to be real You know, not only between us but also more with others around me. You know how frightening that can be for me; it is so inhibiting and limiting to always live in fear of what others think about me. I want to be free, to enjoy life, to celebrate, to be sprung from my prison bars and chains of fear and shame that have enslaved me all of my life. I want to enter into higher and higher realms of joy and thriving and connecting with other hearts and ever new revelations of Your glory.

But as I look at what I have written so far here I suspect that this is going to be impossible until I can somehow get my heart on board to believe that You actually do care about me enough to be hurt when I spurn Your loving advances toward me. Please open my heart, my eyes, my perceptions so that I can see myself the way You see me and more importantly so I can feel what Your heart feels. Then I will be able to better reflect Your unconditional love to others like me who have such numb hearts and emotions.