The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning

Author:Brennan Manning
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: God's Love, Ragamuffin, Grace, Brennan Manning
Publisher: David C Cook
Published: 2011-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Originally, I believed the acceptance of a loving God involved a sufficient but relative minor shift of attitude. After all, it was on so many people’s lips. The more I worked with it, the more I realize that the acceptance in faith of God’s unconditional love was not only hugely significant, it required a major change of attitude … the major shift may be the images we have of God and ourselves. How radically is our image of God reshaped if we take seriously the belief in God as deeply, passionately, and unconditionally loving us? How radically must we rework our own self-image if we accept ourselves as loveable—as deeply, passionately, and unconditionally loved by God?[1]

Two important corollaries flow from this life-changing revolution. First, if we continue to picture God as a small-minded bookkeeper, a niggling customs officer rifling through our moral suitcase, as a policeman with a club who is going to bat us over the head every time we stumble and fall, or as a whimsical, capricious, and cantankerous thief who delights in raining on our parade and stealing our joy, we flatly deny what John writes in his first letter (4:16)—“God is love.” In human beings, love is a quality, a high-prized virtue; in God, love is His identity.

Secondly, if we continue to view ourselves as moral lepers and spiritual failures, if our lives are shadowed by low self-esteem, shame, remorse, unhealthy guilt, and self-hatred, we reject the teaching of Jesus and cling to our negative self-image.

In the fifth century, St. Augustine wrote this lyrical line:

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