As I work toward the launch of my book, Untangling the Mess: Revealing the Certainty of God’s Love, I find myself second guessing my intentions for writing the book, the way the book is organized, and the actual content of the book. It seems that the longer it takes to get the book ready, the more anxious I get.
I worry about how the book will be received by others. Will it be relevant and meaningful? Will it challenge those who make God’s love and acceptance dependent on what people say and do? Will it be comforting to those who are or have been on the receiving end of manipulative tactics and hurtful messages about God’s love? Will my description of God’s love be a blessing to readers?
I wrote this book to share the certainty of God’s love that is not dependent on anything that we say or do. God loves us because God chooses to love us. God doesn’t wait for us to profess our love for God, or to pray some prayer, or to seek forgiveness, or to promise to change our ways. God loves us first and always because that is who God is.
One of my friends read through the book and was struck by the examples that I shared of the ways some Christians treat others. She asked, “Do Christians really behave that way?” My response was, “Yes, sadly, every example in the book is true.” They were reported to me by friends or I experienced them for myself. It was these experiences that prompted the writing of this book.
The situation that most upset me happened when I was attending a funeral for the mother of a friend. The mother was active in her church and had made arrangements before she died for her pastor to officiate the memorial service.
My friend and her siblings weren’t active in the church and had, in fact, not attended a church service anywhere in a long time. My friend told me that she and her mother argued about religion and church quite a bit. Mom fussed at her from not coming to church and she argued that church was not something that interested her. Apparently, the same was true for her siblings and this caused their mom some distress.
Mom must have spoken to her pastor about her concern. During the service the pastor informed the family, and the rest of us, that their mom would spend eternity in torment unless they accepted Jesus and returned to church. He indicated that we’d all be praying the prayer to accept Jesus so that mom could rest in peace.
This was so upsetting! My heart broke for my friend, her siblings, and the rest of us in that chapel at a funeral home. The pastor chose to maniuplate this grieving family into feeling responsible for their mother’s eternal peace. What a horrible, and completely untrue, message to give! I wanted to speak out against this message but was afraid that I’d only make matters worse.
Several days after the service, I spoke with my friend and asked her how she felt about her mom’s service. She was livid! She was embarassed by the behavior of her mom’s pastor. She was disappointed that the pastor didn’t use the plans the family made for the service and instead forced his agenda on them, on all of us. She was angry at her mom for telling him to use that tactic, if she actually did that. She was angry with God, if her mother’s peace was actually dependent on her acceptance of Jesus and participation in church.
She told me, “I’ll never believe in a God who makes a person’s peace dependent on the actions of others and I’ll never attend a church whose pastor threatens a group of mourners with eternal distress because of their supposed lack of belief.” We sat together for awhile and held space for our anger, pain, and sorrow.
It was this experience, along with others, that prompted me to write the book. I wrote it to challenge the hurtful tactics and messages that are used to manipulate people into supposed belief. I say “supposed belief” because forced belief, forced love, isn’t belief or love at all.
I wrote this book to share the certainty of God’s love that is not dependent on anything that we say or do. God loves us because God chooses to love us. God doesn’t wait for us to profess our love for God, or to pray some prayer, or to seek forgiveness, or to promise to change our ways. God loves us first and always because that is who God is.