Many of us have no sense of God at all, or if we do, it is more like a sense of duty or even fear toward God. Then, because we believe we should love God, we judge ourselves to be religious failures.
Our ancestors made no such assumptions about Christian love. Gregory of Nyssa, for example, characterized the life of the monk in three stages. At the beginning, she or he serves God out of fear, like a slave; next, the service of God stems from the desire for a reward, like that of a hired hand. Only in the final stage does this person erve God out of friendship with God, or out of the pur love of God, as a child of God’s household. The significant point here for us is that the love of God is conceived of as being difficult, something to be learned over a very long time.
— Roberta Bondi, To Love As God Loves
I know that some people have sudden conversion experiences, but the above description better fits my experience and my personal relationship with God. For me, one of the great things about the book To Love As God Loves is the way that she reveals to me that my experience is not unusual, I am not alone. The love of God is difficult, it is something to be learned over a very long time, and yet it is possible to grow in that love by attending to the means of grace.