"I would like you to forgive yourself for your life’s
mistakes. God never leads by guilt or by shaming people. Take that
as an absolute. God always leads the soul by loving it at ever deeper
levels, and if you want to be led, you absolutely must allow such unearned
love. Like all grace, it will feel like losing, not gaining, surrendering
not taking, trusting not achieving, allowing instead of “making the
case.” Like all authentic conversion it will feel like dying (See John
12:24 or Old Adams’ Return, Crossroad, 2005), but it will really be living.
Fully, for the first time. God does not love you if you change, God
loves you so that you can change. God is not the rewarder and the
punisher. God is the energy itself. More of a verb than a noun,
according to the great mystics."
Richard Rohr
