One of the things which I struggled to understand in my life was the proper idea of love. In our world, love is an emotion. A child will say, “I really love ice cream.” Adults speak of loving inanimate objects, such as loving a car, a place, or some other object. It is a declaration of positive feelings towards that particular object. But that is not love, it is emotionalism, a set of feelings centered around the pleasure that this particular object gives me. In one of the more bizarre examples of misplaced feelings, I think of men who stalked movie stars for years, claiming they loved that star, only to later kill the star. I have seen numerous stories online of men who killed their wives, women to whom they had no doubt once said, “I love you.” No, it was that the woman they married gave them pleasure, but when the pleasure subsided and the annoyances became more than they could stand, they killed their wife.

Romans 8 Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, [namely] “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.

Beyond any emotion, love is a verb. It is the doing of good to the other person, regardless of your feelings towards them. This lack of necessary emotional content is why Jesus could tell us in the well-known Sermon on the Mount, “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” It has taken me a long time to understand that you don’t have to necessarily like your enemy to take action on his behalf for his ultimate good. Love is a positive action taken on behalf of another and which results in their good.

Many years ago, I had a priest and bishop in my church take actions against me which were highly abusive of their positions of power. The priest was the instigator (he was wrong, and if you have the time, I can tell you why) and the bishop never called me to get my side of the story. Because of their actions, I was denied the opportunity to become a deacon in our parish, something I really wanted. It hurt – badly! Yet I finally found in my heart the ability to forgive them and now I pray for them regularly. But would I necessarily wish to sit down and break bread with either one of them? Not just no, but HELL NO! Not on your life! I don’t LIKE them, but I will continue to LOVE them by praying for them. This is the command of our Lord.

God is love. As such, everything that He does is based in that reality of His very being. He makes the sun to shine on the good and the evil. (Matthew 5:45). In other words, He does not withhold good things from even those who despise Him. But God is also person. He is not some kind of cosmic energy force. He is spoken of in personal terms, and we know that the Second Person of the Godhead became man, a man with feelings who was able to weep at the tomb of Lazarus and who had anger at the moneychangers in the Temple. God is personal, rational, thinking, intellect, etc., just as we are. Mankind is made in the image of God to have these characteristics. This includes the ability to love.

It also includes the ability to choose one’s friends. Let’s face it, there are some people who just rub us the wrong way. They are too talkative, full of themselves, or in a myriad of other ways, just damn unpleasant to be around. And while we might do good them if we found out they had a serious need, such as needing a ride to the hospital, or having their electric bill paid, we would not necessarily choose to spend serious time with them. I say it again, love does not necessarily mean liking. (BTW – I was told this by a priest with whom I was discussing this concept before I came to more fully understand it)

So now let me ask you this: does God Himself also get to pick His friends? Does He have those particular people who, for one reason or another, He delights to be with? I am wondering aloud about this because in looking over the history of the Christian faith and the many saints in it, I find that there appear to have been men and women whom God foreknew He would like and of whom He desired their companionship. I think of certain saints who from their very infancy received tremendous grace from God and went on to live incredible saintly lives of dedication and holiness. I also find there are others who never received the same degree of intimacy with Christ. Oh, God was loving to them in the general sense of taking care of them, giving them their food and drink, protecting them from their own foolishness, and guiding their lives. Remember, Christ stated that God makes the sun to shine on both the good and the evil. But the deep intimacy that the saints experienced, i.e., the profoundly intimate friendship of God, simply was not there for everyone.

And then, what of Judas? Did God like Judas, or was he just a tool in the overall salvation plan, something to be used and then discarded? I know that sounds harsh, but let’s face it, the poor schmuck is, according to most theologians, suffering a most unpleasant time right now. Is that how you treat someone you like?

Think of Moses, the God-seer and friend of God, with whom God conversed “face to face” as a friend does. Yes, God loved the Israelite people, but Moses had a special place of affection with God that none other among all the Israelites, even Joshua, did not participate in. The same could be said of Apostle John, who rested his head up the breast of Jesus. What a great privilege, to be so intimate with the One who created us and all things!

Now let me make this blog more personal. I find myself jealous of those saints to whom God gave such great grace and made Himself so well known in His friendship. I read the stories of the many saints who had a vibrant and living communion with the One who is, and I wish I could have this in my life. Of course, as one who willingly and deliberately chose sin over God, I have neither right nor room to complain. Perhaps God saw that I would not respond to Him in my childhood and thus allowed me to taste of the noxious weeds of sin before rescuing me from my folly. After all, friendship is for those who make themselves good friends, and my choice of sin and sexual perversion over God is probably something that He, being beyond time, foresaw. In short, I did nothing to make myself His friend, and it is of His immense mercy to me that I was rescued from my sin after almost destroying my life in the way I rushed after my disordered passions.

Still . . . I can’t help but in retrospect wish that somehow our Lord had looked at me and liked me enough to send someone to keep me from the clutches of the devil. Some priest or holy person who would have seen the trouble I was in and would have been able to keep me from going in the direction in which I was heading. I know, this sounds terribly like I am blaming Him for my own choices. I don’t mean it to sound that way. I made the choice to love sin, and I tell the truth when say that I have often thanked our gracious Lord in my prayers for giving me fifty extra years of life that I in no way deserved. I ran after sin like a bull chasing a red flag, and every consequence of my actions was earned and deserved. If there is any good consequence of being left to myself, it is that I now have a horror of and distaste for the sins of the flesh, and have no desire to return to that bitter fruit again. My great joy is to be in church, singing with the choir and receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. It is a privilege which I in no way earned or deserve. It is the love of God to one who constantly fails in the Christian life. I like to joke about it (but it isn’t at all funny!) that I keep the Confessional quite warm. But even this kindness, to me, given to me out of the sheer love that is God’s very nature, is not the same as having that personal relationship and intimate fellowship that comes with liking someone. Again, I repeat, you can take care of someone without having a deep personal relationship with them.

Ultimately, I struggle with this. God is love and all He does is filled with the love that He is. I can look back on many times in which He took care of problems in my life for which I had neither answer nor a clue as to how to get out of the trouble I was in. And yet, despite all that, I still find that deep in my heart, I fear death and fear meeting Christ to stand before Him in judgment. Even after much mercy has been shown to me, I struggle to rest in Him and believe that He really likes me. My sins, which are as many as the sands of the ocean, constantly nag at my conscience and make me fear His all-knowing gaze. How could I fear One who has taken such good care of me over my lifetime?

Why is my faith so small? Why do I have such trouble resting in and trusting Christ? I fear that on Judgment Day, I will look back at the movie of my life and be deeply ashamed that, after all that God has done for me, for all the good things that have happened, I didn’t trust Him with all my heart.

This has been an embarrassing confession.