How Does God Love Us?

God does not love us because we are good;

God's love makes us good

(unknown source).

C. S. Lewis points out in The Problem of Pain that a dog who has learned to love his master might wish that the master would tolerate the dog "just as he is," with his 'snapping, verminous, polluting' ways of the wild pack.  The person who truly loves his dog will bathe the dog, brush him, feed him, and train him into an acceptable behavior----into someone who could live in the same house with the man, that is, and whose behavior would not repel others in the house.  The dog who willingly submits to his master's wishes is a happy dog.  The one who rebels does not even understand why he is so unhappy.

Like wild dogs, mankind has become adept through sin at hurting one another, either through carelessness or deliberate evil.  God did not invent instruments of torture; man did.  God gave us the freedom to be cruel, but He also told Cain that his brother's blood cried out to God from the ground.  He cannot go on tolerating the cruelty of man.  He must work at making us more loving and lovable.

Sometimes, when we have grown insensitive to others, it is only the experience of pain that will awaken our souls to the suffering of other people.  God must allow us to be wounded in order to heal us, to make us sensitive to others.  Prosperity is not enough to make us a blessing to others--when we have all we want (not including God), we tend to find God an interruption to our busy lives.  We do not have time to listen to Him, to receive from Him. 

Lewis quotes a friend of his who said, "We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies, but he hopes he'll never have to use it."  But the truth is that, as human beings, we are at our creative best only when the Spirit of God is flowing freely through us to the world.  Just as a dog is at his best when disciplined by man to express man's goodness, so we are at our best when we have been taught by God to express His love and creativity to those around us.  This condition means that we are paying attention, that we are in communion with God so that He can express to us His will.  Sometimes, in the midst of all our distractions, He has to get our attention so that He can give us the gifts He has to offer through us to others.