God Likes Me

Dave Brisbin | 5.13.18 On Mothers’ Day, we’re recalling a question posed last year: I know that God loves me, but how do I know that he likes me? It’s a brilliant question if you think about it, but at first blush, why would it even come up? If we know God loves us, isn’t that enough? No, not really… We’re commanded to love one another, even to love our enemies. But liking implies affection, genuine delight and pleasure, desire to be with, a playful attention that is beyond any commandment. We can choose who we love, but no one can choose who they like—any more than we can choose whether we like broccoli or bacon (I know, everyone likes bacon). We have so focused on God as Father and love as duty and justice, that we have lost the connection with God as Mother and love as compassion and affection. The notion of God as mother pushes all the wrong buttons in our culture, even sounds blasphemous to some, but can our scriptures, placed back in their original Hebrew context come to our rescue? When we look at the original meanings of father and mother in Hebrew, the non-dual continuum through which Hebrews viewed what appear to us a polar opposites, when we see how Hebrews personified Holy Wisdom and God as female, how Spirit and Kingdom are feminine nouns in Hebrew, a balance begins to appear. And when we consider that Jesus always led with mother’s love—acceptance and connection—before he ever taught father’s love— justice and law—we begin to see that God is the perfect balance of father and mother, loving and liking. We may well want to be liked more than loved, but as long as God remains centered in our minds and thoughts, he is Father only—loving and judging at the same time. When we step away from our thoughts about God and simply live our moments with full awareness, we begin experiencing the connection and acceptance of God as our Mother and the answer to our question.