The Generous Love of God
Since February is traditionally considered the “love month” (all overhyped commercialization aside), I want to write about God’s love for us… for you, for me, for every human being on this earth. But thinking about it, frankly, leaves me somewhat speechless and quite a bit overwhelmed.
Where do I even start??
After lots of thought and three rewrites, the only way I really know how to talk about God’s immense and generous love is to tell about the ways I’ve experienced His love for me.
First, He knows me better than I know myself.
For many years I “knew” I didn’t want to have kids, and for a plethora of mostly selfish reasons. In my latter 20s, however, the first of my close friends had a daughter. Like it was yesterday, I remember holding their baby girl after she arrived home from the NICU. Unexpectedly, and somewhat ironically, I’d never felt more like my mother in my life! (My mom was very much a “baby person”, a trait I failed to inherit.) I also vividly remember thinking, “Being a mom might not be so bad. I might could do this.” As it turns out, God was beginning to change my heart.
Fast-forward several years to when I began dating the man who is now my husband. All his life he wanted to be a husband and a father. Suddenly it became clear why God had been changing my heart and mind on parenthood: He was preparing me for Patrick! Now, a few more years down the road, we have two young boys. The days are long, the years are short, and even when they aggravate me beyond the threshold of my patience, I LOVE being their mom!
Motherhood is the life I never knew I wanted… but God did! I’m so thankful He loves me enough to shape me into who HE wants me to be — who He created me to be, even when I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) see His plan. His desires for me will always be far greater than my own meager, selfish wish list.
Second, He’s patiently shepherded me when I was clueless.
While sheep are in fact more intelligent than popular belief would suggest, they are still far from self-sufficient. They need constant supervision and care, or they end up in precarious and sometimes life-threatening situations. Others have labeled me “intelligent” several times in my life, but like sheep, I still need lots of supervision and care (and occasionally fences) to keep me safe. That’s why my Shepherd is so awesome! More than once I’ve been stuck in the muck and mire, oblivious to the severity of my situation, of the deep sin lurking just outside my sight. In my “intelligence”, I thought I knew exactly where I was and what was going on. Thankfully, God plucked me out of those situations… as in, He tied His rope around me and yanked me out before I drowned! Through those “pluckings” I lost close friends, gave up big dreams, and faced all the grief that comes with those losses… but all of it brought me closer to Him. He set me on dry land and cleaned me up. He led me back to His pastures, beside His still waters. He restored my soul.
I didn’t deserve His help. My poor, naive decisions landed me exactly where I deserved to be. But in His deep, patient love, He rescued me from myself. Again. And again. These days I am much more mindful to stay close to my Shepherd, but I know He’s working all the time to keep me close inside His fold.
Third — and only because I’m choosing to stop at three examples — time and time again He’s used both good and bad life events to draw me closer to Himself.
A prime example? When my mom died. She was much too young in my opinion (only 54; I was 25 at the time), and her death was totally unexpected, but I’ve learned to trust God’s timing, even when living it out isn’t exactly fun. At the time of her death, I was already a believer, but I still put too much emphasis on my own plans and priorities. Subsequently, I started to lose my way. Regular church attendance had been absent from my life for a few years. When mom died — because I didn’t want Dad to sit through services alone — I returned to my home church. My reasons for returning to church were not at all God’s reasons. He tugged at my heart to return so I would hear and remember just how much He loves me… and also how much I still need Him.
God used my mom’s death in many, many ways to “burn out my impurities” and make me more like Him. It was — and perhaps still is — a long lesson in learning to depend on Him and Him only. He loves me enough to prevent me from building my life on a flimsy foundation… me. Instead, he’s used all things for my good, to build my foundation on Him, the rock.
There are many other, simpler ways God shows His love for me: beautiful sunsets at the end of long days, sweet snuggles and giggles from our kiddos (even when they wake us up five minutes before the morning alarm), an unexpected encouraging message from a friend just when I need it most, the flowers that continue to bloom in our yard despite my neglect, the thousands of lightning bugs that dance through the fields surrounding our home on warm summer nights, and the peaceful songs of strumming crickets that lull me to sleep. All these small joys in life point to one big, generous, loving God.
Sometime today, take a moment to look around. Look for those small joys that God is using to speak to you, to draw you in closer to Himself, to show you who He truly is. I encourage you to write them down and add to your list often.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. — 1 John 4:10
