God Wants us to Enjoy Life

This may sound obvious, but it is actually a shift in thinking.  It may have to do with the God you were raised with, or with relationships with parents.  It also may have to do with where the emphasis was put in your early years.  Was your God a vengeful God, a God of wrath?  Was your God a God who stays in heaven looking for ways to accuse, ways to correct, ways to get us back in line?  Was the main message you were taught duty, following orders, giving up pieces of who you are up for the hope of some distant glory that never comes?

We need a benevolent view of God.  The view I have of God affects how I think of myself and my day.  If I have a carrot on a stick theology, always being dissatisfied with what or who I am, I will struggle to find rest.  I will always struggle to feel ok.  This doesn't sound much like good news.  God isn't sitting up there correcting, he is loving, he is pursuing.  He wants more freedom for us than we want for ourselves.  God wants us to enjoy life, he wants us to trust the divine mercy flowing through the universe.  God is love, all else I can hold loosely.

We don't need to put God in a box.  We don't need to go him for spiritual nourishment, and then somewhere else to have fun.  The small details of our life matter to God.  Throughout our day, he is pursuing us more than we are pursing him.  He is hoping we enjoy our day more than we are.