Freedom is the gift of God’s humble love. It is the gift of a God who loves us faithfully despite our failures, always bending low to embrace us in love. God’s love is free because real love always desires the best for the other without interfering or manipulating the other. God is one who neither manipulates nor interferes with our created freedom. Rather, God respects the gift of freedom that he has given us. If God forced us to love him, God would not be perfect love and we would not be free. We would be puppets of a controlling God, a God who would be like a dictator; we would live under constant oppression. This would not be a God faithful in love and worthy of our trust and hope. But God does not control or manipulate. No, God is like a beggar waiting at the soul’s door. If we choose to open the door and allow God into our lives, then we will find the freedom of love to be all that we are created to be.
— from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective, by Ilia Delio, OSF
