Does God love me?

[tonyrey]

In that case what is the **rational **

According to Darwinism we are merely products of random mutations which differ from other animals for no reason or purpose whatsoever. Why should we have rights that they are not supposed to possess? It is simply prejudice in favour of our own species** if** we all exist by chance.

By ‘law of the jungle’ I’m assuming you mean something akin to Social Darwinism or a society based on selfishness, which as any sociologist would tell would be extremely illogical as humans are a very empathic and social species.

Then how do you explain the blood-stained history of the human race with its countless atrocities?

I don’t understand why something being of nature means that one must act savage or barbaric, even wolves and chimps have been observed to care for one another when injured, and contrary to popular belief when a baby bird falls from the nest the first time and tries to fly the mother does NOT just let the chick fail, she catches them.

Do lions care for another lion’s cubs when they kill them?

Because empathy and compassion are LOGICAL and they are highly advantageous evolutionary traits.

In other words morality is reduced to expediency. Empathy and compassion soon disappear when it becomes a struggle for survival…

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Because empathy and compassion are LOGICAL and they are highly advantageous evolutionary traits. . .]

If I understand you correctly, you are pointing out that animals can pick up on mood states and exhibit altruistic behaviours, and that this helps those individuals survive and take care of their offspring.
You don’t need to link articles as this tendency is clearly evident in all mammals by their capacity to breast feed.

However, animals exhibit all sorts of other behaviours that are repellant.
Gorillas have small testicles because they rape the females and kill any male and his off-spring when they take over the female.
These behaviours are advantageous for the propagation of the strongest in the group. It is logical too.

Let’s get down to reality:
People test for and abort anyone who has Down’s syndrome. Is this moral?
Is it immoral to kill that person with Down’s after birth?

 

[Neoplatonist]

God is with us at all times. He listens to our cries. And I thank Him for that. If you cannot hear Him in your heart then maybe you need to do something else. I don’t know why you are this way, I only know it is not God’s fault. I prayed this morning that my sump pump which has not been running for the last 4 days because the pipe outside was frozen could easily be fixed. I thought the plumber was going to have to take it apart and be here all day trying to unthaw the pipe outside. My prayer was answered, The pump started and the water ran out down the pipe. It was not working last night. Just keep praying!

If He loves you and is with you at all times, why would He wait until you beg Him to fix your sump pump? Is that how we show love for people? By making them beg us for things we see that they need? You can change the verb to “ask” if you’d like. What husband or mother would not see that the sump pump is flooding the basement and jump i to help?

 

[Aloysium]

If He loves you and is with you at all times, why would He . . . ?

Lol

I bet you were the kid who went around telling the rest of the kindergarten class there was no Santa. You didn’t actually spoil anyone’s Christmas but your own.

God is Love. Whether some angel in whatever form intervened to fix the pump or it was coincidental (whatever of these mean), the person was in a dialogue with God and in that encounter, she spoke of her worries and hopes. The outcome with respect to the pump doesn’t matter, as do the actions of all those involved. The plumber for example could have found trouble if he needed money and found a mark. I think you have to switch your mindset away from power to love. This entire enterprise on this earth is to grow in Christ, to be loving faithful servants of God. We can then join in the love that is shared in the Triune Godhead.

 

[JosieN]

If He loves you and is with you at all times, why would He wait until you beg Him to fix your sump pump? Is that how we show love for people? By making them beg us for things we see that they need? You can change the verb to “ask” if you’d like. What husband or mother would not see that the sump pump is flooding the basement and jump i to help?

I am here to serve God and I do not expect Him to serve me.

 

[Neoplatonist]

I am here to serve God and I do not expect Him to serve me.

But apparently hope He will whenever you call on Him. How is that YOU serving HIM?

 

[JosieN]

But apparently hope He will whenever you call on Him. How is that YOU serving HIM?

I start the day by asking Jesus to work through me in everything I do that day. Then I offer all my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of the day be they good or bad for the love of God and the conversion of sinners by saying the Fatima Morning Offering Prayer. Then I say a few other prayers like this one

Hail, Sacred Heart of Jesus, living and strengthening source of eternal life, infinite treasury of the divinity, burning furnace of divine love! You are my refuge and my sanctuary. My loving Savior, consume my heart in that burning fire with which Your own is inflamed. Pour into my soul those graces which flow from Your love. Let my heart be so united with Yours that our wills may be one, and my will in all things conformed with Yours. May Your Will be the guide and rule of my desires and of my actions. Amen

I ask Jesus to guide me in all my actions for that day so I can serve Him. I know I will sin but I try to do my best.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Lol

I bet you were the kid who went around telling the rest of the kindergarten class there was no Santa. You didn’t actually spoil anyone’s Christmas but your own.

God is Love. Whether some angel in whatever form intervened to fix the pump or it was coincidental (whatever of these mean), the person was in a dialogue with God and in that encounter, she spoke of her worries and hopes. The outcome with respect to the pump doesn’t matter, as do the actions of all those involved. The plumber for example could have found trouble if he needed money and found a mark. I think you have to switch your mindset away from power to love. This entire enterprise on this earth is to grow in Christ, to be loving faithful servants of God. We can then join in the love that is shared in the Triune Godhead.

No, I was a good kid, and I always work as a teacher to protect the hopes and beliefs of my kids.

I AM trying to think in terms of love. I am just having a hard time fitting the situation to any sufficiently analogous examples of anything else we count as “love”, including the options given us in the Bible (parent-child, spouse-bridegroom, shepherd-sheep, etc.).

In our interactions with persons (and again, we are stuck working with at least an analogous sense of “person” in order to relate to the story at all), there are key elements that allow us to distinguish between love and, say, detachment. I’m working to discern how I can categorize my experience of God as love when the things I am able to see seem equally fitting in the category of detachment.

 

[Neoplatonist]

I cannot help but be struck by the paradox created when some of you point out the ways that you do feel loved by God, or see things as signs of His love (like fixing your basement), as a way to clarify what would make sense if you DID NOT feel so loved or believe He had responded to your prayers and cries for help or comfort.

That YOU feel loved does nothing to make me feel loved. One of the stepsisters pointing out to Cinderella that the other sisters are treated well and given gifts does not make her feel any more loved.

 

[JosieN]

I cannot help but be struck by the paradox created when some of you point out the ways that you do feel loved by God, or see things as signs of His love (like fixing your basement), as a way to clarify what would make sense if you DID NOT feel so loved or believe He had responded to your prayers and cries for help or comfort.

That YOU feel loved does nothing to make me feel loved. One of the stepsisters pointing out to Cinderella that the other sisters are treated well and given gifts does not make her feel any more loved.

My children know I love them, but they don’t feel my love all the time. Sometimes we barely communicate, but the love is still there. It would be rare to find someone who feels loved by God all the time, I choose to believe God loves us. He sent His son to die on the cross for our sins. Try focusing on that. He must love us to suffer this way for us. You can believe it if you choose to.

 

[Aloysium]

It is Advent, a difficult time during which we feel the separation from our Beloved. The yearning can be unbearable. He will come.

 

[Neoplatonist]

It is Advent, a difficult time during which we feel the separation from our Beloved. The yearning can be unbearable. He will come.

Then it has been Advent for a long, long time in my case.

 

[Aloysium]

My whole life.
On and off, I should add to not be overly dramatic.
Advent, as many other events in life, reveals the wound.
He comes and it heals ever more.
We become more loving and closer to Home.

 

[Neoplatonist]

My children know I love them, but they don’t feel my love all the time. Sometimes we barely communicate, but the love is still there. It would be rare to find someone who feels loved by God all the time, I choose to believe God loves us. He sent His son to die on the cross for our sins. Try focusing on that. He must love us to suffer this way for us. You can believe it if you choose to.

“Don’t feel my love all the time.” Fine. Surely they feel it often, right? And when they call on you for advice, you answer, not just send some riddle or subtle clue they are meant to decipher, right? What about when they come to you with broken hearts? Do you offer them words of consolation?

How do we “choose” to believe we are loved? Why is that different than “choosing” to believe I will stumble onto the philosopher’s stone if I just keep up with my experiments?

 

[JosieN]

“Don’t feel my love all the time.” Fine. Surely they feel it often, right? And when they call on you for advice, you answer, not just send some riddle or subtle clue they are meant to decipher, right? What about when they come to you with broken hearts? Do you offer them words of consolation?

How do we “choose” to believe we are loved? Why is that different than “choosing” to believe I will stumble onto the philosopher’s stone if I just keep up with my experiments?

What I believe is God’s love for me is different than what you believe it should be. I believe God’s complete love for us will not be revealed to us until we have reached our Heavenly home. Until then, I believe we must be obedient to His word and do our best to follow Him, whatever that is. Whatever trials we must face we must trust Him. You are free to choose to believe what you want. My choice is just different than yours. I guess I am the kind of person who believes that Jesus is with me in times of sadness and trials, and I believe He loves me and that the crosses we have in this life will get me closer to heaven. I will do my best to follow Him and not walk in darkness so that I can get to Heaven.

John 8:12

“I am the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

 

[Tom_Baum]

How can I become certain that God loves me? I know he had infinite love but I suffer from fear that I am excluded and I can’t shake it.

God Is actually a “Being of Love”, love is NOT an attribute of God, therefore God can not “not love”.

I sure can not explain this but one day we will all “know” this.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Still love. Some fathers would say that hell itself is the fire of God’s love and that it is torment to those who don’t want His love.

And since some say that God’s Mercy is infinite, could be that God has set it up in a way that those in hell will some day be “burned clean”, like in a material sense as gold is in a furnace.

 

[Neoplatonist]

And since some say that God’s Mercy is infinite, could be that God has set it up in a way that those in hell will some day be “burned clean”, like in a material sense as gold is in a furnace.

Sounds like Universalism, a distinctly UN-Catholic position, but at least I could get my head around that being compassionate.

 

[Neoplatonist]

God Is actually a “Being of Love”, love is NOT an attribute of God, therefore God can not “not love”.

I sure can not explain this but one day we will all “know” this.

Sounds like a linguistic house of cards: constructing a sentence from words to create something we can’t actually wrap our mind around.

Besides, if we could, the seeming inconsistencies we normally encounter (things done by a loving God that don’t “seem” like loving acts to us) probably wouldn’t drive us to apoplexy.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Sounds like Universalism, a distinctly UN-Catholic position, but at least I could get my head around that being compassionate.

Actually, it is a very catholic, small c catholic that is, since one of the definitions of catholic is: “universal in extent; involving all; of interest to all”.

Who knows, maybe God really does care about ALL of God’s creation.

Who knows, maybe since God is considered to be OMNISCIENT, than God came up with a truly catholic “Plan of Salvation” since God would have known whether or not EVERYONE would have “accepted” in the “time limit” that many seem to think that God is bound by.

Who knows, maybe God really is capable of “cleaning up” absolutely ALL and the words, “INFINITE MERCY”, are not merely nice-sounding but ultimately meaningless words but really do mean what they seem to mean.

Some seem to “think” that Justice is for some and that Mercy is for others, could very well be that JUSTICE AND MERCY are for ALL.

Your words, “at least I could get my head around that being compassionate”, is like a ‘breath of fresh air’, as some might put it, in the sanctimonious sewer of ‘as long as I get to the good place than that is good news’, that so many seem to think the “Good News” is all about.

I happen to believe that if the GOOD NEWS is not, ultimately, Good News for ALL than the Good News is not Good News at all but is horrific news.