Fyodor was right

“Love all of God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery of things.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I became a follower of Jesus 22 years ago. At that time, as a young man in my 20’s, I found in Jesus an unconditional acceptance and love. God didn’t seem to be fazed by the things I had done (or continued to do).

But then I got into church and began to learn what the Bible taught; mostly through sermons, seminars and radio preachers. I learned that I was totally depraved. I learned that I had been a rebel, destined for an eternity of hellish torment, but for the sacrifice of Jesus in my stead. I learned that I could not trust my own heart, because it is evil. I learned that the world is getting more and more evil and that God will eventually abandon it to destruction. I learned to hope to be taken away from this wretched, fallen existence.

I’m not sure to what extent I was consciously aware that I had learned and internalized these things. Rarely did I examine my underlying suppositions. But gradually, by the grace of God and the gentle leading of the Holy Spirit, I have come to examine and question this worldview which formed perimeters around my understanding of God, the Bible, the world and my self.

Now I’m learning new things. I’m learning that much of what I was taught was not so much what the Bible teaches but rather a theological system with seems part and parcel to Western Evangelicalism.

Like the thawing of a long winter, I’m seeing glimpses of a joy and optimism that I didn’t even realize I’d lost. I can love people (all people) because, as the Quakers put it, there is something of God in them. And because Christ loves them. I can admire and appreciate this earth because it is God’s good creation. I can like myself. I can trust myself. I can accept myself as unconditionally as I was accepted by God many years ago. I can do all this and still love, follow and depend on Jesus. In fact, I can do this because I love, follow and depend on Jesus.

I think I'm beginning to see what Fyodor was getting at.