Worthy?

I had been in therapy for over a year when my therapist looked at me and told me I was worthy of love, and that God loved me. The words choked me with discomfort and disbelief, tears welled in my eyes and my emotions where so overwhelming I wanted to leave the room. I was in seminary, I had decided to be a Christian when I was 4, based off the belief that God loved me, I decided again when I was 13, and again when I was 18. I had pretty much decided that responding to God's love was the most important thing in my life, and I had decided it 3 times. These words shouldn't have been hard to hear. I was a chaplain. I told crying girls that God loved them nearly every day. Still, I choked on the words, my eyes welled with tears and I became uncomfortable. I didn't believe I was worthy of love and it felt uncomfortable. I wasn't sure I even wanted it. She repeated these words a few times, and I tried to let them sink in 'I am worthy of love.'

Maybe it is the 4 years I have spent in therapy, the many books/articles I read on self worth or good/bed theology, but while I was once uncomfortable with the idea that I was worthy, I now become uncomfortable when I hear Christians state that we are unworthy of God's love. I  have a hard time because for most of my life I would have agreed with them completely, and I can rattle off about a billion Bible verses that would back up the argument.

When Job questions God, God does a pretty good job letting him know he is small, but still the fact that God is speaking to him at all is a pretty huge statement that God thinks his complaint even warrants a response. David goes to God with the question of 'who am I... that you have brought us this far". David is a man after God's own heart; I am pretty sure that despite his HUGE mistakes, his attitude toward God is generally one I should aspire to imitate. Most of the book of Romans does a pretty good job establishing that as humans we are small. The entire Bible is rampant with sin and shame and terrible choices by humanity, and I am in no way superior to my fellow humans. I could go one for a while making an argument to prove that humanity is unworthy of God's love, but I am still somehow very uncomfortable with the idea.

I guess the conundrum for me is that, I want to say, above all, I believe the Bible is the source of truth, and I believe that the Bible is consistent in its overall message, and I feel that part of overall message is that humanity is loved, and simply by God's choosing to do it we are made worthy of it. I don't think I deserve forgiveness, or that I deserve to have God take on flesh and live and die and be resurrected for me, but I believe that for some reason or another God did deem us worthy of love.

If God has deemed us worthy who are we to disagree with God?