“What Must I Do To Be Loved?

In Erwin McManus’ book “Soul Cravings” he has an interesting entry called “What Must I Do To Be Loved?” His position is that first we humans long for love and second we are convinced that all love is conditional.

We all want to be loved or to find love. It is written into our genetic code and is the basis for most of what we do with our lives. We want the human experience of love so we do what we deem to be necessary to gain the affection of someone to whom we are attracted. Flowers, candy, long walks, dancing lessons, whatever it takes, we jump through so many hoops that we could be mistaken for leader dog trainees.

Lets not kid ourselves into thinking that this is the only arena in life where this takes place either. We relate to God the very same way: praying five times a day facing east, praying the rosary, giving enough money, lighting the right candles, using lawn statues for luck, bottom line we are looking for acceptance from God. McManus says “the reason religion “works” is because we believe in conditional love.”

What would happen if we began to live like we believed in the real message of Jesus, his unconditional love for us? “What would happen if we began to realize that God was not, in fact, waiting for us to earn his love, but that he was passionately pursuing us with his love? What would happen if the word got out that Jesus was offering his love freely and without condition?”
Indeed!