Living Less Loved

I finished reading The Shack this past weekend and it is such a good book! The characterization of God has really helped my ‘imagination’ and how I think about God. It also did a lot to help me see how much God just wants to love me and how much He’s done to show me that. At the same time I ordered The Shack, I also got a book called “He Loves Me!” which was written by Wayne Jacobsen who helped with the writing of The Shack. The following excerpt, which is very long but I think worth reading, is from He Loves Me. The author is writing about the story of the Prodigal Son – which he really thinks should be titled the Parable of the Incredible Father! :-)

Living Less Loved

In this incredible story, when do you think the father loved his son the most?
Every time I share this story I ask people that question. Almost always the first answer is the moment where the father met the son on the road. After a bit more thought, however, some suggest it might be when the father gave him his inheritance and let him go. Only then does it become clear: there is no point in the story where the father loves his son more than at any other point. He loved him completely through the whole process. It is the only constant in the story.
The events in this story cannot be accounted for by the varying love of the father – only the varying perception of it by the son. Though he was not less loved at any point in the story, through most of it he lived as if he were.
When he took the money from his father and stormed off the farm, grateful to be out from under the clutches and free to pursue his own way, he lived less loved.
When he spent his money in a foreign land, wasting it on his own pleasures and thinking he’d finally fooled his father, he lived less loved.
Even when he started for home, practicing his plea of repentance, willing to be a slave, he lived less loved.
But finally, when he was home in the robe, the sandals, and the ring, sitting at his father’s table, sinking his teeth into the filet mignon, it finally sank in. He was loved. But he always was! It was just that then he could stop living as if he weren’t.
Most of our lives are spent living less loved.
When we worry that God will ask us for some horrible sacrifice, we live less loved.
When we indulge ourselves in sin, we live less loved.
When we give in to anxiety in the crush of our circumstances, we live less loved.
Even when we get caught up in religious obligations to make ourselves acceptable to Him, we live less loved.
That is the story of the older brother. At the end of the story he was so angry at his father for welcoming his wayward brother home, he refused to come to the house and join the celebrations. He had stayed with his father, never pursuing his own aims, but he still missed out on the relationship his father wanted with him. Though a son, he saw himself only as a slave and every request of his father as an onerous chore.
The first son represents those who run from God by indulging their own selfish pursuits; the older son represents those who work hard to impress God with their commitment. Fearful of the consequences of disappointing God, they slave away for him. But they never come to the depth of relationship the Father wants with them. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day were like that, as are many people today who are caught up in a host of religious activities but miss out on what it really means to live in the Father’s love.
In the long run it doesn’t matter whether rebellion or religion keeps you from a vibrant relationship with the Father; the result is still the same. He is cheated out of the relationship he wants with you, and you never come to know how he feels about you.
Jesus ended the story at an interesting point. The younger son was in the house enjoying his newfound relationship with his father. The older son was still outside weighing his options. Would he come to know just how much he was loved and join the celebration, or would he remain convinced of his father’s unfairness and stay angry and alone outside?
The choice was his – and it is yours! Everything about your life hinges on the answer to one simple question: Do you know how loved you really are?
Isn’t it about time you found out?

“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” EPH 3:17-19

One final thing: There’s a line in ‘The Shack’ that I really, really like that seems to me to show the attitude that the father had in this story – and that God has towards us when we’ve been in the ‘pig pen.’ This is “God” talking:

“I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it.”

And all I can say is, Amen to that. :-)