Bumper stickers are not cool anymore, and only weirdos continue to wear smiley-faced “God loves you” pins. Truth be told, we sing it, preach it and use it in words of encouragement to one another, but we are not so sure about this. What is God like, and what does he really think when he looks at me?
More often than not we probe our circumstances in an attempt to discern His heart. Wayne Jacobson1 puts it this way : “In some ways I had become like the schizophrenic child of an abusive father, never certain what God I’d meet on any given day — the one who wanted to scoop me up in his arms with laughter, or the one who would ignore me or punish me for reasons I could never understand.” (you can download the first edition of this book free of charge – see below)
The prophet Micah pushed this question to its ultimate conclusion: God, what must we do to merit your favour? Would thousands of rams make you happy? Maybe ten thousand rivers of oil? Do you want me to give you my firstborn child, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Abhorrent to God and to any parent reading this, many tribes did just that and sacrificed their own children to appease their mean, angry, self-centred deities. Why? Because it was the most precious gift they had to give–the ultimate sacrificial act, hopefully guaranteeing the ultimate reward.
To the world God may well be “three angry letters in a book”2, but what is He to you and I? Sometimes it is just so much easier to try and live a life whereby we can justify His love. It is a lot more civilised now, but we offer our own sacrifices. Like the eldest boy in the parable of the prodigal son, we dutifully stay at home and try to do what is right in an effort to earn His approval.
Eventually, amongst a flood of circumstances which defy understanding, we end up hurt and disappointed, and say (as this young man did) “Father, how can you do this, I have worked for you all these years and never disobeyed you!” He wanted his father to love him for his goodness and obedience, but ended up angry and out of relationship with him when he did not get “what he deserved”.
“So you want to see the Father?” Jesus asked Philip. “Look at Me and you will see Him!” A beautiful illustration happens when He took every little child who came to Him in His arms individually, held them close and blessed them. That is His heart towards us. Yet it was only the build up…
In one, history-dividing grand finale, God gave Himself, His Son, to answer the question once and for all. I love you so much that I give what is most precious to Me to become sin on your behalf, to bring you back to Me. I am doing for you what you could never do for yourselves. Now there is no reason for you to doubt how completely I love you.
Julian of Norwich3 must have considered these matters when she left us with this thought from her visions 600 years ago : “The greatest honour we give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of His love”
Could it be that the greatest joy we bring to God is when we, like little children, accept that He truly loves us?
Can you?
Glory to Him
WS
1 He loves me! Learning to live in the Father’s affection, by Wayne Jacobsen (2007) http://lifestream.org/waynes-books.php?bid=5 (includes a free download link for the first edition)
2 The Incarnate One, a poem by Edwin Muir, from One foot in Eden (1956)
3 Julian of Norwich (c.1342-aft.1416)