I’m reading Tokens of Trust by Rowan Williams. He makes very plain and very direct some points we all know, but which it is good for us to continue to ponder.
“God is the unique source of everything. Therefore, there is nothing God is forced to do.”
God didn’t need to create. God was not lacking anything. And yet God chose both to create us and to love us, without there being “anything” in it for God.
“The love that God shows in making the world, like the love he shows towards the world once it is created, has no shadow or shred of self-directed purpose in it; it is entirely and unreservedly given for our sake.”
Despite the fact that God has nothing to gain from loving us, God is neither miserly nor stingy with love. Indeed, God has gone as far as anyone can for love.
“The love God shows, in creating us as much as in saving us, is completely free. He doesn’t owe us anything. He has chosen that we should exist and he has chosen to treat us always as lovable – as it has been forcefully expressed: ‘he has thought that we were worth dying for’.” — Rowan Williams [1]
When you doubt your purpose or your value, when you wonder if you are loved, remember “God thought we were worth dying for.” To be specific, God thought you were worth dying for.
[1] Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Know Press, 2007), chap. 1, Electronic Version.
