Article December 10, 1979 Issue

Loving because loved

ROSEMARY COBHAM

Nobody who understands and feels that God loves him can hate another. The warm sense of God's love for him so encircles, comforts, and floods consciousness that it spills over to embrace both casual and close relationships. If we temporarily lose this certainty of God's love for us, we may be inclined to be unkind to others. Basically we are unkind to others because of fear. Envy, jealousy, competition, unjust criticism, indifference, all stem from this fear, which is uncertainty about our own identity and position.

Sometimes we are unable to feel that God loves us because we lose sight of the fact that He made us in His perfect likeness. We then see in ourselves only human shortcomings and have a false feeling of unattractiveness. We accept—mistakenly—a personal sense of petty meannesses, small deceits, and pinched thoughts. We may look at others and see them apparently carefree, generous hearted, easily successful. And because we wish we could be like them, but fear that we cannot, we become more soured, more ungenerous, more despairing.

Sometimes we are unable to feel that God loves us because, quite simply, we are unable to feel God. God seems not real to us and we are satisfied with ourselves as we feel we have made ourselves. But we wonder why other people don't see us as we think we are, and love us as we ought to be loved. So perhaps we don't love them either. We are indifferent, or despise them, either of which is veiled hate.

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