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“Today St Benedict sets before us the twelfth step of humility (RB 7. 62–70). It contains both a wonderful promise and a powerful warning. We must make a habit of virtue and move from fear to love in our following of Christ.”

The above quote came from a blog post by Dame Catherine Wybourne.

It sparked a train of connected thoughts about our relationship with God and our journey in the Christian life. Rules can dominate our lives, not the kind of rules of St Benedict, but our own hidden rules. We for example may decide to read the Bible everyday and fail and with that failure bring upon ourselves a sense of not being worthy of God. Hidden in our own psychological make up we may even have hidden rules and patterns of life that we try to follow and yet fail and this can bring with it a sense of worthlessness, that in turn sours our relationship with God. It may not even be a holy pursuit, it might be our weight, our relationship with food, our looks and we can feel we are failures and that can also sour our relationship with God. We feel we are unworthy. We can try and hide our failures or implore God for forgiveness for our failings. We may even reach the point where we so dislike who we are we cannot accept that God loves us. We are unworthy and live with this fear that we are displeasing to God since we can’t even measure up to our own standards and desires.

An image may lurk in our mind as to how we are so supposed to live in the image of God, how we are supposed to live as followers of Jesus. We will never live up to such ideals. We may fool ourselves by adjusting the message of God to fit our own perception of following Christ. We might even rewrite in the name of mistaken love the basic teachings of the Church.

A thousand pitfalls surround us. We may live with them for decades or even to the end of our lives without learning to see the truth. This is hard to read, harder to live, harder to acknowledge, that we at  have got it upside down and back to front. It leads to despair, fear and misery. We are failures. We have fallen into the trap of trying to save ourselves, of trying without intending to, to try and earn our salvation, to try and earn God’s approval. To win his love.

What fools we are to live this way. God loves us. It is as simple as that. We can enjoy that love, that security, that freedom that has for so long eluded us. There is nothing God wants of us but acceptance of Him and for us to love Him.

We love Him because He loved us first.

Our failures are as nothing to Him, he sees our efforts and He is pleased but like a parent caring for a toddler His love is unconditional. Does a mother or father cease loving their children because they throw a tantrum or make a mistake? If you are a parent you know this to be absolutely true. Indeed even your grown children no matter what they do cannot lose true parental love.

So live with love in your heart, love God because He loves you and throw aside all the rules and expectations you have placed upon yourself, all the ways you think you have to be. Be free.

Be happy, God gives you the freedom indeed the command to be happy after all we are living the resurrection life. Jesus is alive and well and our future is assured. We are safe. So be free and happy in His love. There are only two rules to follow, Love God and Love Your Neighbour.

There is nothing to fear!