Lenten Thoughts: We should love the Lord as we do our friends.
“We should love the Lord as we do our friends. Many a time I have seen people bring grief to God, without being bothered about it, and I have seen these very same people resort to every device, plan, pressure, plea from themselves and their friends, and every gift, simply to restore an old relationship upset by some minor grievance.”
John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent.
birth pangs 
This either means that we just think and know God is quick to forgive and that relationship doesn’t take much work and we understand his grace a lot, or that we take God for granted and don’t really care
Well, it could be that. I think John is mostly concerned with emphasizing confession and repentance. But you bring up an interesting point. God is quick to forgive, and full of grace. This, I think, is all the more reason to confess and repent. We ought to be quick to confess not to receive God’s forgiveness but rather because in Christ God has already forgiven us. In human relationships we repent and ask forgiveness to mend a broken or harmed relationship. But in Christ, the relationship between man and God is already mended. So then, forgiveness is not a gift for those who confess but rather *enables* us to repent and beckons us to do so.