January 7, 2020
1 John 4:7-10
We’re always worrying about whether God exists and how to prove it.
But it’s simple. We don’t need science. We don’t need history. We don’t need archaeology. “God is love,” the first letter of John says, and he really means it.
Love isn’t locked in the past. It’s subjective but it’s completely real. We feel it, we know it: when we look at someone’s face, when we shake someone’s hand, when we admire something outside us and see its beauty and rightness.
This isn’t easy. There’s a discipline to this, a command to a new way of seeing.
Weeks go by and finally I become aware that I’ve been judging people again and disliking people and feeling angry at people, without even knowing it.
Weeks go by and finally I become aware again of how selfish I really am. I only pray for what I want and what I need. I only think about what I’m feeling.
No wonder I don’t feel the presence of God. I’ve been blocking it.
If God is love I need to change my whole orientation. I need to be the camera, not what’s being photographed. I need to find windows, not mirrors. I need to look out.
And when through grace I do, there He is! God is here!
And notice, too. The key thing isn’t what I think and what I feel and what I do. The initiative comes from God. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he has loved us.”
The way to prove the existence of God is by not trying to.
God doesn’t need to prove himself to us. We need to prove ourselves to him.
Or no, that’s not right. Not prove. Not strive and struggle and earn.
We need to let ourselves be loved by God.
We need to let ourselves be loved, and then that love flows through us, out into the world.
That’s the proof.