Loving God 

   “Say to yourself over and over again regardless of what happens:  God loves me!  And then add:  And I will try to love Him.”  (Fulton Sheen) 

   When things are going well, it’s easy to say and believe that God loves me.  However, it’s not quite as easy when things have gone terribly wrong.  To continue to say and believe God loves me in the difficult times takes faith and even determination.

   Sometimes we tend to look at things selfishly.  We are willing to thank God for the good, but we want to blame Him when things are not so good.  We must remember that nothing that comes from God is evil.  Any evil we may endure comes from Satan or is a result of our own sinfulness.  I believe that God sometimes allows us to suffer for our sins to remind us that we need to repent and try to do better.

   I like the way Bishop Sheen added, “And I will try to love Him.”  It can be hard to love God when we are blaming Him for a tragedy in our life, or some other cross we may be called to bear.  Even though we find it difficult, those are the times when we must rely even more on the love God has for us and try even harder to love Him in return.

   Jesus suffered greatly for us, and He told us, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9: 23).  There is no path to heaven except by the way of the cross.

   So, I will remember that God loves me always.  I will thank Him for the good things of life and accept the bad that must come.  I will love Him in the good times and try to love Him even more when times are hard.