On receiving God's love
How do I make myself at home?
“I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love.”
-John 15:9 (The Message)
It’s difficult for me to make myself at home in God’s love. The keeping of the commands part makes sense to me. It gives me something to do, something to work towards.
The intimacy, however, is another story. I often feel as though I need to create the intimacy from deep inside me—I make intimacy another command, another thing for me to achieve.
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This past week I finished a novel that has immediately entered my top five of all time. It’s called Foster by Claire Keegan, and it’s a simple story based in Ireland about a young girl who is dropped off by her father with relatives. I don’t want to give anything away, so that’s all I’ll say about the plot.1
I had just read the verse above in John as I opened up the book, and sixteen pages in, one specific scene stopped me. This scene is of the young girl being given her first bath by her new foster mother after being dropped off.
“This water is deeper and hotter than any I have ever bathed in. Our mother bathes us in what little she can, and sometimes makes us share. After a while, I lie back and through the steam watch the woman as she scrubs my feet. The dirt under my nails she prises out with tweezers. She squeezes shampoo from a plastic bottle, lathers my hair and rinses the lather off. Then she makes me stand and soaps me all over with a cloth. Her hands are like my mother’s hands but there is something else in them too, something I have never felt before and have no name for. I feel at such a loss for words but this is a new place, and new words are needed.”2
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I believe that true intimacy with God is something we are not used to. It takes time to make ourselves feel at home in a love that does not use us or abuse us. It takes a while to get used to a purifying love that cleans our bodies and prises out the dirt with tweezers.
We are not used to the depth of water, the extravagance of the love. There is nothing for us to do but receive.
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Back when I was leading YoungLife we were going to have a movie night, and I was in charge of getting snacks. I went to the store and bought everything I needed to bake cookies as well as a host of other foods and drinks. I spent way too much than I should have, but I was determined for my YoungLife students to get a taste of extravagance, of getting more than they think they deserve, of perhaps a small glimpse of the love of God.
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One of my favorite facts about the Bible is found Ephesians chapter one (with thanks to Eugene Peterson in Practice Resurrection for pointing this out to me). In the opening of that chapter there’s a long run-on sentence with a bunch of verbs—all of which point to God. Paul is writing about the depths and mysteries of God’s love and salvation and the ways we belong to that love. He’s painting a mural of the work of God and makes sure that all the action words belong to God. God does it all.
“This orienting introductory sentence places us in a cosmos in which God starts everything. Everything. There is not a single verb commanding us to do something, not so much as a hint or suggestion that we are to do anything at all.”3
The only verb in that opening section that is ours is implied. It’s the word receive. All the other words are God-words, God-actions. We are invited to receive those actions and live into the world God is creating.
“So what is there left for us to do? Receive. That is our primary response if we are to find ourselves non longer lost in the cosmos but at home in it.”4
I think that’s beautiful.
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Like the girl in Foster, each of us are used to taking baths in too-empty tubs with too-lukewarm water. Maybe I shouldn’t speak for you. For me it’s true though. I work hard to earn God’s love by following God’s commandments, but I never actually lay back in the tub and watch God scrub me through the steam. Intimacy with God becomes another task for me to accomplish, and it is never accomplished when I own all the verbs.
I am still learning how to receive that kind of love, that kind of intimacy. It is new for me and feels foreign. The water is hot—extravagant—but I am standing in it, learning how to get used to it. Learning how to rest in the intimacy of God, getting used to the contours of God’s house.
“I feel at such a loss for words but this is a new place, and new words are needed.”5
At 96 short pages, it is technically a novella, and you can read it in a few hours, so you honestly have no excuse not to purchase it right now or check it out from your local library.
Keegan, Claire. Foster. New York City, Grove Press, 2022. 16.
Peterson, Eugene. Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ. Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010. 67.
Practice Resurrection, 68.
Foster, 16.
What an insight! I think your writing is beautiful. And I've added a book to my book pile.
I struggle with receiving anything from God. I tend to think everything comes down to my performance. Intellectually I know God loves people. Working in foster care and growing up in a loving but at times very unpredictable home I see how hard it is for us all to feel loved by real people, let alone a seemingly invisible God. Thank you for this. I love orphan stories. Have you ever read the children's novel Good Night Mr., Tom? There's a bathing of an orphan scene in it that's also very moving.