Grace and Love

So lately the big lesson God has been teaching me is to let Him love me. This seems like a strange lesson to learn but I think it has been a long time coming. I was rereading the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller and in one of the chapters he is talking about grace and how some people accept it so freely and then others struggle with accepting it. It's like the concept slapped me in the face as if I had never really processed it all the way through before. He writes,

"I would hear about grace, read about grace, and even sing about grace, but accepting grace is an action I could not understand. It seemed wrong to me not to have to pay for my sin, not to feel guilty about it or kick myself around. More than that, grace did not seem like the thing I was looking for. It was too easy. I wanted to feel as though I earned my forgiveness as though God and I were buddies doing favors for each other."

I'm not saying that I have never accepted God's grace because I have and I have no doubt I am forgiven but I just feel as if I get caught in this trap of trying to prove myself and in a sense earn my keep with God, which when I think about it seems completely silly. In my head I know this isn't necessary but it seems to be this mentality I fall into. A little later in the chapter he says,

"I am too prideful to accept the grace of God. It isn't that I want to earn my own way to give something to God, it's that I want to earn my own way so I won't be charity." " Who am I to think myself above God's charity? And why would I forsake the riches of God's righteousness for the dung of my own ego?"

This really struck a cord with me. I have always found it easier to give than receive and I have always had this fear of being someone else's charity case. Here I am in a place where everyday I am working to take care of those who are in need and I am in just as much need of God's grace and love as anyone else. I am too prideful to accept God's gift of grace feeling as if I am not worthy of it and I can in someway prove to God I deserve it, but I am in no way different from anyone else and He offers it freely to all of us. He simply gives it because He loves me and I need to get myself out of the way sometimes and simply let Him.

"I will love God because he first loved me, I will obey God because I love God. But if I cannot accept God's love, I cannot love him in return, and I cannot obey him. Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God's love will. The ability to accept God's unconditional grace and ferocious love is all the fuel we need to obey him in return. Accepting God's kindness and free love is something the devil does not want us to do. If we hear, in our inner ear, a voice saying we are failures, we are losers, we will never amount to anything, this is the voice of Satan trying to convince the bride that the groom does not love her. This is not the voice of God. God woos us with kindness, He changes our character with the passion of His love."