god of love – Aspirational Adventures

As always the youth group I co-run blows me away every time. We haven’t met over the summer and I realised when we got together how much I’d missed them. The eldest is only 14 and yet their wisdom is amazing.

I’d decided we would do about the names of God. Unfortunately I hadn’t read the Bible verses I picked for them to read but they were so amazing and I learned so much. Firstly we read about where Hagar meets God [I’ll do a full piece on this in the next blog] which was complicated to explain but I got so much from it especially as it connected to the Forgiveness theme of the all-age service. But this was much more my revelation than the groups.

We then read Genesis 1:1 and I posed that old question of “what did God make the world with?”

One of the girls gave me an almost withering look and said “well God made the world with Love”. Wow! Of course! You know I had never thought of that before. All the world is connected with love and when we love each other and love the world all runs smoothly but when we fight, are greedy, want more, don’t trust and love each other, or when we abuse the natural resources of the world, then things are awful. Then there is suffering. It goes back to that “Why does God allow suffering?” Well God doesn’t. We do More to come on this soon.

This leads us to this bigger picture, to this need to be connected. To trusting and listening to God. God loves each of us unconditionally so that we can love each other unconditionally. Many of us haven’t received that unconditionally love from earthly sources so haven’t given it back. But if we get our heads round the God of the universe loving us unconditionally then we can love each other unconditionally. Or at least give it a try.

So with all this buzzing in my head I then read this blog by Dave Andrews. Someone I met many years ago in passing at Cross Rhythms festivals. Another connecting connection. In this post he talks about how as he has got older he has let go of doctrines and now just accepts that God is love, God loves unconditionally, and we are to do the same.

Well it seems to me, Dave, that at least some young Christians have reached that point in their teens rather than having to wait till we got into our 60s. To me this gives hope for the Church, as in big time Church with capital C, and God moving within and without.

As I was saying to someone the other day “something has to change and it has to come from those in their teens and 20’s”. Well maybe it is but I need to be connected and need to see the bigger picture so I don’t miss it?

Its not the words but how you interpret them

Happy spoilt dog at Newborough beach, Anglesey, August 2023 photographed by myself

We have diverse TV habits but from them it is interesting what God can say to my husband and I.

We were watching Scandi crime drama, Beck, which used the overused story line of the white girl being bad because her parents were fundamental Christians who used the bible verse “spared the rod and spoil the child” [a misquote of Proverbs 13:24] as their disciplining of their strong willed child. As always with these story lines it involved the child being punished severely. Though I think many of us have been brought up this way. Not necessarily physical beatings but lots of emotional withdrawals if we did not behave. In fact I notice myself saying to some of the children I work with “if you don’t do x [behave as I would like] you won’t get x [something you like]” as a way of encouraging what we, as adults, have decided is acceptable behaviour. It isn’t as extreme as in the Beck story line but it does work along the lines of not spoiling the children – as if spoiling is a wrong thing.

We also were watching “Dogs behaving [very] badly” and noticed that the dog behaviouralist encourages the dogs to be calmer and more fun to be around via a series of treats until those treats are not needed. Spoiling the dogs??? Maybe!

But here’s the thing – what if we’ve put the wrong emphasis on the wording. So the phrase “spare the rod and spoil the child” has more often than not been used, as in the episode of Beck, to say that one must reprimand challenging behaviour in our children, often leading to a spank [illegal now in Wales] or some other form of discipline, and if the parent does not discipline their child properly then their child will grow up spoilt and being spoilt is not a good thing.

But what if it means that a parent should “spare”, as in not use a form of discipline, but instead spoil their child with love and attention, of understanding and care. Not material things but time, understanding, being there for them, accepting them as they are, loving them unconditionally.

The last paragraph sounds more like how a God of love would be to their children than one who grinds their children into submission and compliance.

As with the dog behaviouralist man, he takes dogs that are so unruly their owners are thinking of getting rid of them, and via love, understanding, lots of treats, and never any smacking or punishing, takes these dogs and turns them around to be wonderfully content, loved, well-behaved dogs. Spoiling the dogs does not make them selfish, greedy, needy. They were those things beforehand. Spoiling the dogs makes them feel more loved, more secure, more wanting to be pet dogs.

With many things I think we need to be aware of how we put written words together and the emphasis we place on them, whether this is the Bible, emails, books, text messages, etc.

I just wonder how different all of us would be if we were “spared the rod” [as in not punished] but were spoilt a bit. Not just as people in and of ourselves but I do wonder how differently we would be towards God if we knew that God always spared us from punishment and just wanted to spoil us.