Does God love me?

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Your supposedly all-knowing god knows exactly what it would take to convince me, yet he is suspiciously absent in providing it.
Even St Peter, who walked, spoke and ate with God Himself rejected and denied Him. That is the exact things that the devil tempted Jesus with in the desert. To give people what they want, make their lives easy, tell them everything to do, to come down from the Cross, to do powerful signs so people would follow Him. Jesus refused and rebuked Him because that is not the Gospel. That is not who God is, it’s not what we are and it’s not how we are saved.

This world was given all of the signs it’s going to receive. It was given God Himself and we rejected Him and killed Him with our own hands. God promises if you seek you will find. But first you have to truly seek. If you do that God is faithful. He will show you all things.
 
Interesting. What if we build on the analogy, though: the mother gave birth to us, but now when the child is hurt and cries she does not hold him, she does not talk to him when he asks her questions. How would that poor child feel like it was still loved? Surely hearing from the housekeeper or the gardener that his mother still loves him would hardly be sufficient…

How is the mother standing silent showing love? Would we really consider her a loving mother if she just reminded us that she gave birth to us whenever we ask her for help or comfort?

How can we reconcile these two paradigms?
A mother is not love. She can only give love when she chooses. God is love.
, so His love is always present. I think this is difficult for us to understand. My answer is that we may sometimes feel that God has forgotten us, but our Faith tells us this is not true. We only have to look at Jesus on the cross, God did not abandon Him, He was there with Him.
 
False. You cannot knowingly ‘reject’ something that you don’t believe in.
Do you believe in love?
‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”
Matthew 25:40
And no one condemns themselves to hell, that is just bending over backwards to shift the blame.
They are to blame because they love themselves instead of others.
If someone is pointing a gun at you and demands that you give them your money, and you refuse, and they shoot you, that’s murder not suicide.
Totally irrelevant. We are responsible for loving or ignoring others.
 
A mother is not love. She can only give love when she chooses. God is love.
, so His love is always present. I think this is difficult for us to understand. My answer is that we may sometimes feel that God has forgotten us, but our Faith tells us this is not true. We only have to look at Jesus on the cross, God did not abandon Him, He was there with Him.
If it’s always present, and I am doing everything I can to be open to it, but do not feel it, then where’s the disconnect? If the mother loves her child, and he asks for comfort, and cries out to her, and does the things that he thinks will make her happy with him, but she stands silent, then what does it matter whether she loves him in her heart if he does not feel it?

You can claim he has somehow turned away or refused it, but only by arguing in some convoluted (an unfalsifiable) way that it was still his fault in spite of the evidence of his life choices and his conduct that he was a good, sincere kid who made his best effort to be a good son.
 
Yes you have. Look around you. Listen to the witnesses. If you want a hard heart my friend God will harden it. If you don’t show even a little willingness there is nothing God can do to convince you. You think we don’t understand you but we do. I know exactly why you reject God. But even though we are faithless God is faithful, always.
Look around you.
At what?
Listen to the witnesses.
Who have given me no reason to believe them either.
If you don’t show even a little willingness there is nothing God can do to convince you.
I am completely willing to accept things that I have reason to accept.
But pretending to know me better then I do is…odd.
You think we don’t understand you but we do. I know exactly why you reject God.
From what you’ve said you clearly understand very little about my reasons.
 
Do you believe in love?
Matthew 25:40

They are to blame because they love themselves instead of others.
Totally irrelevant. We are responsible for loving or ignoring others.
No actually you’re right.
A more accurate scenario would be this.
“A man walks up behind you and says there’s a mugger in front of you who’s about to shoot you unless you throw your money at him. There is no one in front of you.”
You are the man claiming there’s a mugger there.

Oh and for your information I DO love others, I love humanity.
So your false dichotomy is irrelevant.
 
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord my God, thou art very great!
Thou art clothed with honor and majesty,

Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment,
who hast stretched out the heavens like a tent,

Who hast laid the beams of thy chambers on the waters,
who makest the clouds thy chariot,
who ridest on the wings of the wind,

Who makest the winds thy messengers,
fire and flame thy ministers.

Thou didst set the earth on its foundations,
so that it should never be shaken.

Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.

At thy rebuke they fled;
at the sound of thy thunder they took to flight.

The mountains rose, the valleys sank down
to the place which thou didst appoint for them.

Thou didst set a bound which they should not pass,
so that they might not again cover the earth.

Thou makest springs gush forth in the valleys;
they flow between the hills,

They give drink to every beast of the field;
the wild asses quench their thirst.

By them the birds of the air have their habitation;
they sing among the branches.

From thy lofty abode thou waterest the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy work.

Thou dost cause the grass to grow for the cattle,
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth,

And wine to gladden the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine,
and bread to strengthen man’s heart.

The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,
the cedars of Lebanon which he planted.

In them the birds build their nests;
the stork has her home in the fir trees.

The high mountains are for the wild goats;
the rocks are a refuge for the badgers.

Thou hast made the moon to mark the seasons;
the sun knows its time for setting.

Thou makest darkness, and it is night,
when all the beasts of the forest creep forth.

The young lions roar for their prey,
seeking their food from God.

When the sun rises, they get them away
and lie down in their dens.

Man goes forth to his work
and to his labor until the evening.

O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
In wisdom hast thou made them all;
the earth is full of thy creatures.

Yonder is the sea, great and wide,
which teems with things innumerable,
living things both small and great.

There go the ships,
and Leviathan which thou didst form to sport in it.

These all look to thee,
to give them their food in due season.

When thou givest to them, they gather it up;
when thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good things.

When thou hidest thy face, they are dismayed;
when thou takest away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.

When thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created;
and thou renewest the face of the ground.

May the glory of the Lord endure for ever,
may the Lord rejoice in his works,

Who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke!

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.

Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
and let the wicked be no more!

Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!
 
If it’s always present, and I am doing everything I can to be open to it, but do not feel it, then where’s the disconnect? If the mother loves her child, and he asks for comfort, and cries out to her, and does the things that he thinks will make her happy with him, but she stands silent, then what does it matter whether she loves him in her heart if he does not feel it?

You can claim he has somehow turned away or refused it, but only by arguing in some convoluted (an unfalsifiable) way that it was still his fault in spite of the evidence of his life choices and his conduct that he was a good, sincere kid who made his best effort to be a good son.
I do not believe we deserve God’s love. We are sinners It is a gift Maybe you need to look outside yourself to see His love. I see His love in the beauty of my surroundings. He is there in a field of flowers, and on snow covered mountains and in every breath of air we breathe.If you think God is somehow to blame for your problem. How does that make you a good person?
 
I do not believe we deserve God’s love. We are sinners It is a gift Maybe you need to look outside yourself to see His love. I see His love in the beauty of my surroundings. He is there in a field of flowers, and on snow covered mountains and in every breath of air we breathe.If you think God is somehow to blame for your problem. How does that make you a good person?
I am sorry that you feel such self-loathing, I’m sure sure you are a far better person then you think you are.
 
I am sorry that you feel such self-loathing, I’m sure sure you are a far better person then you think you are.
What I meant is love is a gift from God. Maybe I did not use the right words. I did not mean to sound self-loathing.
 
I do not believe we deserve God’s love. We are sinners It is a gift Maybe you need to look outside yourself to see His love. I see His love in the beauty of my surroundings. He is there in a field of flowers, and on snow covered mountains and in every breath of air we breathe.If you think God is somehow to blame for your problem. How does that make you a good person?
Well I’m trying to close the gap and it’s not working. God is apparently perfectly capable of reaching out to me. You tell me whose decision it is not to bridge the distance? Doesn’t make him bad, might have perfectly good reasons. Doesn’t mean I feel loved in the meantime.

If an injured child lies in the middle of the living room floor crying for his mother to come and she doesn’t, is he a bad person? Is it somehow his decision to feel pain? What if he’s hungry? He’s looking through all the cabinets, tries eating some of the things he finds there, but nothing stops the hunger pangs for long. Maybe mom left a note that says call me at work and leave a message and I will call you back. If he calls every day and leaves a message and she never calls back and no groceries show up, is that his fault?

In a similar way, if looking at the snow and the flowers could fulfill the hunger in us, we wouldn’t need things like mass and reconciliation and prayer, right?
 
If you are not even willing to have an open mind about it there is nothing God or any human can do to change your mind.
Creation might show us a brilliant artist, an architect, many things. How does it show us a mother? A caring teacher?
 
Creation might show us a brilliant artist, an architect, many things. How does it show us a mother? A caring teacher?
That’s an extremely good question. I think creation perfectly expresses God’s care for us simply because it exists, because we have charge over it, in how we are taken cared for through it, in how we can see the beauty.
 
That’s an extremely good question. I think creation perfectly expresses God’s care for us simply because it exists, because we have charge over it, in how we are taken cared for through it, in how we can see the beauty.
Interesting. It still seems perfectly impersonal to me. I could rise to be in charge of a factory or a garden, but that doesn’t mean the factory or the garden love me. An artist could make me curator of the museum of his artworks and inventions, as well, but, again, doesn’t prove I am “loved.”

Keep at this line of thought, though. I’m curious to hear how you feel it / see it differently.
 
Well I’m trying to close the gap and it’s not working. God is apparently perfectly capable of reaching out to me. You tell me whose decision it is not to bridge the distance? Doesn’t make him bad, might have perfectly good reasons. Doesn’t mean I feel loved in the meantime.

If an injured child lies in the middle of the living room floor crying for his mother to come and she doesn’t, is he a bad person? Is it somehow his decision to feel pain? What if he’s hungry? He’s looking through all the cabinets, tries eating some of the things he finds there, but nothing stops the hunger pangs for long. Maybe mom left a note that says call me at work and leave a message and I will call you back. If he calls every day and leaves a message and she never calls back and no groceries show up, is that his fault?

In a similar way, if looking at the snow and the flowers could fulfill the hunger in us, we wouldn’t need things like mass and reconciliation and prayer, right?
Hunger in the heart is a good thing.
Maybe this prayer will help you

Prayer of St. Anselm of Canterbury

Lord, our God
Grant us the grace to desire you with our whole heart,
that so desiring, we may seek and find you;
and so finding you, we may love you;
and loving you, we may hate those sins from which you have
redeemed us.
 
Hunger in the heart is a good thing.
Maybe this prayer will help you

Prayer of St. Anselm of Canterbury

Lord, our God
Grant us the grace to desire you with our whole heart,
that so desiring, we may seek and find you;
and so finding you, we may love you;
and loving you, we may hate those sins from which you have
redeemed us.
Interesting. Seriously. Yet, until it results in finding, it’s just pain.

Perhaps more importantly, I think there is an equivocation here between the desire to feel loved and the desire to give love. I am not short of people to whom I give love. I feel short of a God by whom I feel loved.
 
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