The God of Love


The human being has so much power today, more than at any time in history. We have the power to organize almost our whole lives through a screen in the palm of our hand. We have the power to make 500 people fly through the air in a metal machine. We have more military power of destruction than ever before.

And yet, at the same time, even with all this power, human hearts have never been more anxious and empty. Anti-anxiety pills have become the norm and are the most profitable and growing drug today. The paradox for the human heart in our time is that the more outwardly powerful, in control and dominant we become, the more empty, anxious and fearful is our heart.

What if our obsession with power is really the longing for an outdated all-powerful tyrant God? What if the anxiety and fear that lives in our hearts is there because we keep trying to find our identity in control and power, when the source of our true being lives in a vulnerable powerlessness God of love?

For in Christ, God has let go of His power and become powerless, even unto the death on the cross. The challenging spiritual secret of today is that God is not all powerful anymore; he has given that up to be all loving, all sacrificing. And through practicing letting go of our own quest for power, our own need for control, we come closer to our divinity, closer to the source of our true being. For our truest humanity only awakens in Christ, in vulnerable powerless love toward all.

Dear Friends, God is not out there, pulling strings, aloof and in control. And to worship that fraudulent tyrant of a god is to unknowingly fill your cup with anxiety. For the true God is here with us in all that we do, walking with us, suffering what we suffer, overjoyed when we freely love one another. He has let go of His power so He can experience what it means to be human, so that He can, not dominate the world, but love the world.
This contemplation by Rev. Evans was inspired by John 19 and the God of Love.