Day 74 God: Stern or Merciful?

I really appreciated Michelle's last post. God is both of these things. And both are good. We need affirmation, we also need judgment when we deliberately disobey or mess up. We need to experience boh but both have to be accompanied by God's unconditional love for us. If we only hear one side of God and we don't experience the love we will have problems. I struggle with the same thingas Michelle. During Seminary, I read an article, about a guy who was having trouble sleeping. He would wake up at 3 am and be unable to go back to sleep. He told his spiritual advisor about it. The spiritual advisor suggested, may be God was trying to contact him, as he was too busy during the day. So the advisor told him to keep a pad an pencil by the bed, the next time he couldn't sleep, he advised the man to pray: "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening." And then record on paper the thoughts and impressions that occurred to him.( Which is what Eli told Samuel in I Samuel 3:10.) When the man followed the suggestion, he really enjoyed the experience. When it stopped a few years later he missed it alot. The reason he liked it because as he journaled all the responses, most of them were positive affirmations, and lots of creative ideas that provided the direction for the man's ministry. I went through a period of insomnia so I followed the advice as well. Almost all of the comments running through my brain were doubtful, self-critical, very few of the affirmations. I think it's because of the shame based Asian cuture, I talked about the last time I preached. We have an overdeveloped capacity to hear criticism, and an underdeveloped capacity to hear affirmation, commendation, appreciation.The voices of our parents, teachers others in our lives amplify the negative and filter out the positive. The result are a lot of hyper competitve, overly scrupulous, over achievers, and lots of people lacking confidence, always feeling we never measure up, who can criticize but neither give nor accept praise. So I pray that our church and our fellowships can be places where we speak the truth with love. Where everyone is valued. Where we speak the words and thoughts of God both mercy and righteousness with grace and love.