A Princess, a Mole and Me

"There's no way to earn what you've already got/Nothing to prove when you're loved from the start."                                                                     

- 'All that you need', Christa Wells (2011)

There once was a Princess who grew up in a decidedly capacious castle, only to discover that every room of the castle contained whole kingdoms replete with many other princesses, who were every bit as beautiful, every bit as clever, and every bit as talented as she was. For the Princess, this was horrifying. This was not the kind of magic she believed in. Her castle was diseased. If this was magic, it was an evil delusion. Stamping her perfectly manicured feet, she jumped onto her perfectly manicured horse and rode as hard as she could off into the night. But no matter how far she went, she never even left the first room of the castle.

Then there's Mole. Mole lives in a very cosy burrow in the middle of a field. Except to Mole, it isn't a field; it's an intricate maze of mountains, conveniently spaced out near to each other to provide him with a very pleasant neighbourhood. Mole enjoys extending his already extensive property. He is always plotting new ways to improve his home and he loves watching interior decorating programs on TV.  One day, there was a thud outside Mole's front hole - a tight-lipped, bespectacled mole wearing a suit, ID badge and brandishing a clipboard appeared to inform him that he needed to take part in the National Mole Ordnance survey. 

'We are assessing the property stakes of the 12 million moles that live in this part of England'.

Mole was indignant. He downright refused to take part in any such survey. 

“12 million moles...in this part of England?” That was just not likely at all. He would believe it when he saw it. 

I think I must have been the bane of my Sunday School teacher's life. I knew all the answers, bounced up and down a lot, and always had something to add. In a "Yes, I do remember the memory verse, also last week's memory verse and yes, I can also tell you what this memory verse MEANS (in three points) kind of way. Pick me, pick me!"  

I’m still that kid in a lot of ways. If I sense that answers are available, I reach for them. Urgently ( - although  I am  much more aware now of how inadequate my understanding of them is). My eyes still widen and lots of too many words succeed in making it out of my mouth. The urge to bounce is still very much there. I still want to run till my legs refuse to carry me any more WHILE singing my lungs out. (Think aerobics class meets very energetic kids praise songs....great fun!). I still manage to merge Eeyore levels of ponderous melancholy with Tigger levels of bounca-energy.... 

While I was still in my enthusiastic mini-theologian phase, I can remember being told that God loved me (“which, by the way, children,  is amaaaaaaaaaazing!”) and I can remember going away and thinking about it and coming up with the following get-out clause:

'Well that's great, but God also loves EVERYBODY in the world. Just as much as he loves me. Therefore, I must still expend lots of energy trying to be lovable.'

Cat the mini-theologian was presented with the concept of the magnitude of God’s love and she balked. Oh, she could articulate the doctrine of God’s love perfectly. But she balked. Essentially, I couldn’t latch on to the idea of a love that could be so big and so widely applied but that wouldn’t end up diluted or somehow less personal in the process. I hadn’t yet noticed the astounding pervasiveness and surprising versatility of insecurity but I sensed that God’s love was somehow not going to silence my deep yearning to know that I was worth something. I was definitely up for being loved by God, but I had stashed God’s love away under my belt as a given, and was keeping my eyes peeled for any other prizes that might be out there.

I fell prey to the ‘He loves me and....’ syndrome.  'He loves me and …. Yes, you claim that that’s amaaaaaazing but there’s still a ton of other stuff I want.’ Or, ‘He loves me and.... surely I still have to prove myself somehow? Just watch me, I will go do ALL the things you are recommending with great enthusiasm if not skill and then at least YOU (if not) God will love me more. Ta-da!’

When it comes to God’s love, we all have blind-spots. Maybe you’ve never had the ‘Oh yes, but God also loves everyone so now I don’t feel special’ kind of blind-spot. But there has to be a reason why Paul prays that we may be ‘rooted’ and ‘established’ in love and may have ‘power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3)

On one level, I was suffering from cosmic sibling rivalry. Ummmm, God has put 7 billion people on the planet you know (not to mention all those heroic deeply flawed Bible characters and the centuries of legendary grace-empowered Christians) - so a little bit of attention-seeking is probably necessary if I’m going to get him on my case... Ummmmm, in my Father’s house there are many rooms, that is great, that is really great but it is also a little bit intimidating…. I feel small now…. 

What did over-keen mini-theologian Cat need to know?

God’s love is so far from being lessened or weakened by its magnitude – it can only really be known in its magnitude (‘together with all the Lord’s holy people’). And no matter how wearisomely wayward we are, it never, (to borrow one of my favourite Tolkien phrases) becomes ‘thin(ned)…like butter spread over too much bread…’ 

Humans get lost in crowds. There's too much to take in - we have to zone out a bit to focus on anything. God's love isn't like that. God's love makes the Pacific ocean look like a puddle, but it recognises and treasures every molecule in that puddle. God’s love reveals itself in its personal, intimate gentleness to bruised reeds and smoldering wicks – to a countless multitude of bruised reeds and smoldering wicks. (Isaiah 42).

 That’s how far it is from being fazed or repelled by our smallness (of stature, and of heart). 

‘AMAZING love, how can it be, for oh, my God, IT FOUND out…..

me.’                                                                              

                                                                                      (Charles Wesley, 1738)