Something came to me this morning when I was praying. It wasn’t a voice from on high, or from a little bird.

It was simply a realization about myself, and that realization was this: I put conditions on Jesus, in the way of accepting His love. I realized that I’ve always done this—even though I knew better.

Jesus will love me if I change, and become a better person.

He will love me if I become a better Christian, and a more consistent disciple.

He will love me if I do not lust, covet, or steal.

He will love me if I am nice to people.

He will love me if I am different.

He will love me if…

Along similar lines:

He won’t love me if I look at that woman in the little dress.

He won’t love me if I get angry in traffic, and call down curses on the guy in the BMW.

He won’t love me if I don’t pray two hours every day.

He won’t love me if I get frustrated with my son.

He won’t love me if….

And then there was also this:

I had been harboring similar thoughts about Jenny. She won’t love me unless I can change.

She won’t love me unless I lose weight.

She won’t love me unless I become the strong Christian man that I sometimes pretend to be.

She won’t love me unless I can be all the things I think she wants me to be.

She won’t love me unless….

I had spent much time trying to figure out the person I thought she wanted me to be, and wondered how I could become him.

So this morning, I asked Jesus for truth about those things. Something I should have done long ago.

Instead of going to the kitchen table, and reading my bible and praying before and during my breakfast, I simply stayed in the bedroom, and I knelt next to the bed. I placed my hand on Jenny’s leg, and I just asked Jesus for wisdom about everything that was going on. I called out to him and asked him to show me what I actually believed about myself that would inhibit me from accepting love and grace from Him, and from my wife.

I asked Him why it was so hard.

And that’s when it came to me that I had always thought and expected Jesus would better love the person I should be, rather than the person I was. I knew I would never, never be the person I ought to be, and if that was true, then the only love I would be able to accept from Jesus was that sort of…obligatory, parent-style love. He loved me as a child because he had to.

It kind of astounded me, because I’d read so many books, and heard so many sermons about the unconditional, relentless love of Christ. This was knowledge I’d always had in my head, and even in my heart occasionally. Yet it’s still something I forget.

And it’s also something I constantly need to be reminded of. Similar to needing to confess my sin to Jesus regularly, I also need to be loved by Him as Father, as Abba. I don’t just need to know He does–I need to feel it, too.

I need Jesus to love me without condition, without expectation, and without limit.

I felt that love anew this morning.

I gave him my doubts about myself. I gave Him my negative thoughts, and asked him to help me change my perception of myself. I asked Him to help me see myself as He saw me, and to be able to love myself and others the way He loved me.

I felt His love drape across me like a warm quilt.

And I lifted my head and looked at my wife. I saw Jenny lying there, mostly asleep, and God gave me the truth of her love as well. I watched her lay there, red pillow clutched to her chest, her face completely peaceful, and I saw her beauty anew. I saw her as God did, and He allowed me to see myself as she saw me for just a moment.

She had not married me to make me a different person, or because I could do or not do any particular thing.

She married me because of the person I was when she got to know me.

She married me as a work in progress.

She married me as a man who doubts sometimes.

She married me as a man with fears, as well as hopes and dreams.

She loved who I was, right then—kneeling by the bed in work boots and jeans. Not some ideal person who did not exist.

And I felt that love anew.