And this is our Beloved’s delight. Perhaps one of the things that most undermine the development of our intimate relationship with God is our inability to realize and accept the fact that God does really want an intimate relationship with us, that we are really important to him.
He made us for no other reason than to enjoy us and to have us enjoy him. He had an absolute fullness of happiness and he wanted to share it, so he made us. Such absolute gratuity is difficult for us to comprehend.
Our whole training and the attitudes that prevail in today’s world reinforce the conviction that one has to merit love, that everything we get has to be paid for. Not so with God, Nothingness cannot merit until it is gratuitously given something to serve as a basis of activity and possible merit. God in his great love does give us the ability and the glory of meriting. But, ultimately, all is a gift. And so he says: “Unless you become as little children you shall not enter into the Kingdom.” Unless we are, like little children, wholly without thought of any deserts, able to accept all from our Father, we cannot hope to have anything.
God is our Father, and as a most loving Father he takes delight in us. And he wants us to take delight, to take pride in him, to turn to him for security, love, and care. A father is delighted when his little one, leaving off his toys and his friends, runs to him and climbs into his arms. As he holds his little one close to him, he cares little whether his child is looking around, his attention flitting from one thing to another, or if he is intent upon his father, or just settling down to sleep. Essentially the child is choosing to be with his father, confident of the love, the care, the security that is his in those arms.
This is an excerpt from the book Centering Prayer by M Basil Pennington If you would like to buy this book please click here.