Why on earth do I say God loves me?

Why on earth do I say God loves me?

Part 2

I am not merely meditating on the principles of love and being uplifted by the profundity of an absolute, abstract quality. I can see that this would be a possibility. As someone who likes to think of themselves as a deep thinker, and someone who is often inspired by ideas and events, perhaps, as I consider how wonderful is the quality of love, and how wonderful it would be if I could be possessed by this abstract quality of love, perhaps I am able to conjure up an experience of love. However, again, this does not match at all what the experience feels like. I am not overcome by inspiration at an uplifting principle; it strikes me as a personal relationship.

However, I am not recalling some instance of an actual person loving me and extrapolating from that what it would be like to be loved like that again – only this time by an invented God figure. I am glad to say that I know what it is like to be loved and to love deeply. However, when I experience God’s love it is an entirely direct encounter with God that I experience. It is not like forms of Buddhist meditation where you do focus on someone you love and then share that emotion with others – including yourself. With that form of meditation, you are aware of what you’re doing, and are completely in charge of it. When I am experiencing God’s love, I am not at all in control. Perhaps the most striking feature is the way you are so suddenly caught up in God’s love – as well as how overwhelming the experience is. This fits in – as an image to try and explain it – with exactly how you would respond if, out of the blue, your dearest love, whom you have not seen for ages, and had no idea they were about to visit, suddenly burst into the room to embrace you.