When the renowned theologian Karl Barth visited the University of Chicago,students and scholars crowded around him. At a press conference,one asked,”Dr. Barth,what is the most profound truth you have learned in your studies?” Without hesitation he replied,”Jesus loves me,this I know ,for the Bible tells me so.” I agree with Karl Barth.Why,then,do I so often act as if I am trying to earn that love? Why do I have such trouble accepting it?

    As Dr. Bob Smith and Bill  Wilson, the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous ,first devised their twelve-step program,they went to Bill D.,a prominent attorney who had flunked out of eight separate detox programs in six months. Strapped in a hospital bed as punishment for attacking two nurses,Bill D. had no choice but to listen to his visitors,who shared their own stories of addiction and the recent hope they had discovered through belief in a Higher Power.

   As soon as they mentioned their Higher Power,Bill D. shook his head sadly,”No,no,” he said,”It’s too late for me,I still believe in God all right,but I know mighty well that He doesn’t believe in me any more.”

   Bill D, expressed what many of us feel at times.Weighed down by repeated failure,lost hope,a sense of unworthiness,we pull around our selves a shell thatt makes us almost impervious to grace.Like foster children who choose again and again to return to abusive families,we trun stubbornly away from grace.

   I know how I respond to rejection letters from magazine editors and to critical letters from readers.I know how high my spirits soar when a larger than expected royalty check arrives,and how low they sink when the check is small.I know that my self-image at the  end of the day depends largely onlwhat kind of messages I have received from other people.Am I liked? Am I loved? I await the answers from my friends,my neighbors,my family–like a starving man,I await the answers. 

    Occasionally,all too occasionally,I sense the truth of grace. There are times when I study the parables and grasp that they are about me.I am the sheep the shepherd has left the flock to find,the prodigal for whom the father scans the horizon,the servant whose debt has been forgiven,I am the beloved of God. 

What would it mean,I ask myself,if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as “the one Jesus loves”? How differently would I view myself at the end of a day? 

    Sociologist have a theory of the looking-glass self; you become what the most important person in your life (wife,father,boss ,etc.) thinks you are.How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible’s astounding words about God’s love for me,if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

   Brennan Manning tells the story of an Irish priest who ,on a walking tour of a rural parish,sees an old peasant kneeling by the side of the road,praying.Impressed,the priest says to the man,”You must be very close to God.” The peasant looks up from his prayers,thinks a moment,and then smiles,”Yes,he’s very fond of me.”