God loves me. Therefore, I am.

There is a certain similarity between how I am in myself and how I perceive God in my life and my prayer. Take, for example, a person preoccupied by law, rules and right behaviour. He or she is focussed on observances and performance, and that can be good, but it is not a place at which to remain, for there is more. Such a person will tend to see God as Lawgiver, Judge, Accountant, someone who is watching with a critical eye.

But the Lord is requesting of me not only a life lived by commandments, even if they be divine. My Creator is making an offer to me, inviting me into a personal, conscious relationship of love with Godself. I am invited to awaken to the deep truth of what it means to be a creature, namely, that my Creator is loving me into existence and is doing this continuously. I exist because God wants me to exist; he loves me, and so I exist. I am attractive and important in God’s eyes; I am ‘precious’ to him (Is 43:4). To accept this truth is a big shift in my perception of who I am, and in my image of who God is. A new level of relationship with God comes into view. But there is yet more.

This God wants my heart. As my Creator, God is giving me his heart already by loving me without reserve. Over the long history of salvation God has revealed more of his desire towards me by arriving at the extraordinary point of giving me his Son, so that I can be not only a loved creature but an adopted son or daughter, who shares in the Sonship of Jesus and in the inner life of the Three Persons. It takes time and God’s grace to become able to hear this in such a way that it is real for me and comes into play in my prayer and my life. God can only love me: I am his heart’s delight. He wants me to hear this in my heart, to hear it in an operative way. Personal prayer is a privileged place in which to hear it and to develop it over a lifetime. (Adapted from Finbarr Lynch: When You Pray. Dublin: Messenger Publications, 2012).

Source:- Sacred Space <http://www.sacredspace.ie/>