A friend of mine used to begin every prayer: “Father, I love you.” When I first heard him, I thought it was cool. After a couple years, something began to seem strange. I liked that he loved God, but his inflexible, unwavering, rigid preface to every prayer felt weird.
I wanted to ask him why he started prayer with those exact words, but he was also an irritable person. If anyone (especially his wife) ever questioned him, he blew up, or else he clammed up, and he said he needed to be somewhere else (probably anywhere else).
And his hyper-sensitivity was my problem. It seemed he loved his reputation most of all. Maybe he should have started his prayer, “Father, I love my name.” I finally asked him about his prayer routine, and I suggested he change it and begin each prayer, “Father, You love me.”
He called me the next morning and said, “I just can’t do it. It seems so presumptuous or pushy. Or rude.” He said, “It’s easier to say, ‘I love you’ than to say, ‘You love me.’ Especially to GOD!”
He suggested I try his approach for a week, that I begin every prayer, “I love you.”
You Shall Love the Lord …
My family is a hugging family. We express our affection. We hug hello and goodbye. We say we love each other. It’s easy, affirming, and community building. So my friend and I agreed to try each other’s idea. I’d begin each prayer, “I love you” and he’d begin, “You love me.”
But as I started each prayer, “Father, I love you,” it seemed like I was giving reasons to God why he should listen to me; after all, I loved him so very much. Sort of like the Pharisee who begins his prayer, “I thank you, God, that I’m not like other people, cheaters, sinners, or like this tax collector.”
Instead of praising God, I was applauding my own wonderful affection.
A man I met on a retreat once told me the whole gospel could be summed up in one sentence: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. But he’s wrong. That isn’t the gospel. It’s the Law. Don’t get me wrong, we should love the Lord completely, but if that command was the gospel, we would be lost. Because we fail every hour.
I began to pray, “Father, I want to love you, but I flunk. I love my name, I love my comfort, and I love success more. Please help my un-love like the man who said, ‘I believe, help my unbelief.’”
I could pray that prayer more honestly. (And honesty is a good place to start when praying.)
My Friend
A week later, my friend called me, excited. He said, “I love beginning with God’s love! It’s like repeating the verse, ‘We love because he first loved us.’” He said that remembering God’s love first began to grow his own love of the Father. When he prayed, “You love me,” he almost always also remembered a time he was irritated by someone’s (especially his wife’s) correction.
He said, “God knew of that bitterness before he ever loved me. If he loved this ego-centric, super-sensitive me, then he must really love me. It sort of makes me love Him more.”
He asked me if I had ever tried my own suggestion for him, to begin each prayer, “Father, You love me.”. Honestly, I had never even thought of starting prayer that way until I noticed my friend’s routine beginning. And I had never done it myself.
He encouraged me to try it. He said that it actually gave God more glory than his own, self-serving approach. He said it’s more biblical, because Scripture is all about God’s love for us, not our love for him.
So I tried it: “Father, You love me!” For a week. And I just couldn’t do it; it felt so … presumptuous. I can say in my head that he loves me, but in my heart, I doubt.
Sometimes my “wise” advice for others is really God pointing out my own weakness.
Sam
Don’t Believe Your Own Headlines
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Thank you for this article, He Loves Me. He Loves Me Not. I really appreciate the humble authentic way that you write!
I used to say, I love you, to God, quite often, somewhere in my prayers. One day, not in connection with me praying like that, but one of my adult sons and some friends of his pointed out to us, and our church group, Jesus’s Words, “If you love me you will keep my commandments,” and “He who has My commands and keeps them, he it is who loves me.”
My son seemed to be trying to bring to our attention the fact that we claim to love God, but obeying Him did not appear to be very important to us … The situation turned into a HUGE, VERY painful church issue as people reacted strongly against my son, and his friends … Needless to say, that point they were trying to bring to our attention really got my attention! And, my prayers changed as well! …
I really appreciate how your friend humbly and honestly shared with you how, when He prayed “Father, you love me,” it brought to his mind a time that he was irritated at someone’s correction (especially his wife’s)!
Wow! If recalling our Father’s great love for us, brings us to repentance, that seems like a VERY good thing! I hope I’ll remember to pray that more often! Revivals are often (or always?) characterized by repentance!
Thank you very much, again, for the humble honesty in your articles!
Elaine
Hi Elaine,
Thanks for your GREAT story. It is so much easier to “say” I love you than to show it. Your son and his friend were on to something.
I’m not opposed to telling God that I love him. In fact, I think I should, and maybe often. I think the problem is that we often say it “I love you” as a way of earning our right to enter the throne room. And the only way we “earn” that right is when we recognize His love (and the cost of the cross) and NEVER through our love.
Thanks,
Sam
Thanks for your honesty, Sam. I find I can only appreciate what God has done for me if I remember to thank God for His faithfulness, in spite of my own faithlessness, at times. Well, maybe all the time. Recently, I struggled with the reason the book of Judges was even in the Bible. The stories of Gideon and Japheth, and mostly Samson, seemed so preposterous to me, until God opened my eyes to realize that these stories simply demonstrate God’s faithfulness in spite of our own weakness and selfishness. What a wonderful Father!
Hi Steve,
I love that you bring in those dubious characters from Scripture. On one hand, we want to say, “How could God have worked through such idiots!” On the other hand … maybe I’m just as bad and won’t admit it. (We all justify our own errors, don’t we?).
I think the key to understanding God’s love is that we have to hold two truths in our head at the same time: a) we are worse people than we ever dare to admit, and b) we are more loved than we ever dared to dream.
Thanks
Good article filled with many ideas to ponder. I don’t know how I will feel if I try either of these openings, but I am going to try them…:-)
Hi Tom,
They really are fun. But I still think the hardest is to begin each prayer: Father, You love me.
And yet … all of Scripture says it.
One of the things I often say to the Lord is, “Jesus, I love You back!” I am so awestruck by His love that is truly love. He told me about three years ago, that I don’t love enough… just an observation, like He did with the woman at the well… simply letting me know that He knows all about me and still loves me dearly. Anyway, it set me on an adventure ever since of regularly asking Him, “Lord, show me what love looks like.” He is warming up my coldness, enlarging my smallness, bit by bit. I have a verse from Psalm 119 posted in hopes I will look at it, for instance, before giving a piano lesson: “I will run in the way of Your commandments when You enlarge my heart.” We are so utterly dependent on Him! And He, so Faithful and True.
Hi Candace,
Great line, “Father, I love you back!”
Thanks
I found this interesting because I also have a tendency to say I love you to God a LOT, not as a legalistic preface, but just as an outpouring of my gratitude and enthusiasm for how good He has been to me. It is in NO way intended as a manipulation tactic…. I will try “you love me” but honestly that FEELS to me, on the face of it, more like a manipulation tactic. But I think it would benefit me to get over that.
Hi Susan,
Yes, I absolutely agree we can express our love for God by telling him we love him. But I still like the idea of saying “You love me” because even the love I have from Him comes first from his love for me. (Although, even now as I pray it, I do so in a sense of wonder rather than a sense of deserving it 🙂 ).
I remember when I, too, started focusing more on “You love me” than “I love you” in my conversations with Abba. It WAS awkward and felt presumptuous at first, but I knew the Holy Spirit had guided me to change, so I persevered. One day it dawned on me (don’t you love those Holy Spirit inspired dawnings!!), Abba IS love and to reject affirming His love for me was to reject Him! That changed my attitude about those words quite a bit. Now about 98% of the time I freely and joyfully affirm His love for me in our conversations. Note that 2% of the time it still feels selfish and awkward. And He still loves me 100% of the time. Sigh. You just gotta love Him. 🙂 🙂 🙂
I am reminded of my relationship with my Earthly father when you share your difficulties with praying,”God you love me.” I knew that “in his own way”, my Earthly father loved me, but there were few times in which he was able to express his love for me in a way in which I could gladly receive it.
As you often describe your relationship with your own father in a positive light, I am surprised to hear about your struggle with acknowledging the love your Heavenly Father has for you. Did you not commit to your eternal memory and heart the phrases,”Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so….”?
Sounds like this may still be an issue? I think it is a “key one” to our relationship with our Eternal Father.