There is a scene in the film Ragamuffin that is worth pausing the movie for. Rich Mullins is in a car, somewhere in the dark, running from himself the way he often did. His friend slips a cassette tape into the player and the voice of Brennan Manning fills the car. And something in Rich Mullins breaks open.
The words Manning spoke that night were not complicated. They were not a theological argument or a carefully constructed sermon outline. They were simply this:
“I dare you to trust that I love you, just as you are. Not as you should be. Because none of us are as we should be.”
Rich Mullins wept. And perhaps we understand why.
We spend so much of our lives trying to become someone God could finally be proud of. We clean ourselves up before we pray. We confess before we come close. We perform and we strive and we exhaust ourselves in the pursuit of a version of ourselves that feels worthy of being loved. And all the while, the God of the universe is waiting at the door of our heart saying the same thing He has always been saying: come as you are.
Manning spent his lifetime preaching one sermon in a thousand different ways. He believed that the central question of the Christian life was not “Are you good enough?” but rather the question Jesus Himself will ask on the last day. Manning put it this way:
“I am utterly convinced that on Judgment Day the Lord Jesus is going to ask each of us one question and only one question: Did you believe that I loved you? That I desired you? That I waited for you day after day? That I longed to hear the sound of your voice?”
That question lands differently depending on where we are sitting when we hear it.
For some of us it lands like relief, like finally being seen. For others it lands like a quiet conviction because if we are honest, we have heard about the love of God our whole lives and never quite let it reach the deep places. We have nodded at it from a safe distance. We have agreed with it theologically while quietly believing in our hearts that it applies to everyone except us.
Manning called this out with a grace that never felt like shame. He said the real believers would answer yes. But many faithful churchgoers, many dutiful sermon-givers, many consistent tithers would have to quietly reply: “Well, frankly, no sir. I never really believed it.”
There is the difference. Not between the righteous and the wicked. Between those who received the love and those who kept it at arm’s length.
Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that God rejoices over us with singing. Not tolerates us. Not endures us. Rejoices. The God who spoke the mountains into existence quiets Himself over us with love and breaks into song. That is not the God of our low self-esteem. That is not the God we have made in the image of our most critical inner voice.
Manning said it with the kind of plainness that stops us in our tracks: “I could more easily contain Niagara Falls in a teacup than I can comprehend the wild, uncontainable love of God.”
The wild, uncontainable love. Not the love that waits for us to get it right. Not the love that keeps score. The love that was already running toward us while we were still a long way off.
The question is not whether God loves us. The question Manning dared us to answer is whether we believe it. Whether we have let it past the front door of our hearts and into the rooms we are most ashamed of. Whether we have allowed it to be the loudest voice in the room.
Rich Mullins believed it eventually. Imperfectly, messily, with tears in a car on a dark road, but he believed it. And it changed everything about the music he made and the life he lived and the way he loved people on the fringes.
We can believe it too. Not because we have earned it or figured it out, but because the invitation has never been rescinded. It is still standing. It was standing before we woke up this morning and it will be standing long after we close our eyes tonight.
Do you believe that He loves you?
Not as you should be. As you are. Right now. On this ordinary day. In this imperfect life. With everything you are carrying and everything you have done and everything you wish you could undo.
He loves you. He has always loved you. And He is not finished yet.
Father, forgive us for the ways we have kept Your love at a safe distance. For believing in it with our minds while guarding against it with our hearts. Today we open the doors we have kept closed. We receive what we cannot earn. We trust what we cannot fully understand. We say yes to the question You are asking. Yes, Lord. We believe that You love us. And we are letting that change everything. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Has there been a moment in your life when the love of God finally felt real to you?