Zephaniah 3:17-“For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
In just a few months I will be 27 years old. And I recognize that’s still young, although there are days that I feel incredibly old. But what’s important to me about age 27 is that it will mark 20 years since I gave my heart to Jesus. Childhood memories tend to get blurry as we get older but I remember that moment, walking up to the front of church, clearly.
I remember standing hand in hand with my family as a church member led us in the sinner’s prayer. I remember hearing my parents repeat the words and noticing they were crying. I remember crying myself. I also remember that I didn’t quite understand everything I was feeling but that I did indeed feel like something drastic had changed. I watched that change as my father turned into a loving, kind man of God and my mother just seemed more at peace. I recognized that at age 7. But, as I said, I didn’t fully understand the extent of all of it.
Here I am 20 years later and I know that I still don’t fully understand, that it wasn’t an age thing at all .That God’s mercy and grace is beyond human comprehension at any age. And, 20 years later, I am just now starting to get a grasp on what the love of God really is.
For a long time I struggled with feeling like God was just waiting for me to fail so he could shake his head in disappointment. The guilt that overwhelmed me about not feeling like enough manifested itself in a lot of different ways, namely an eating disorder that I battled with off and on for years. I struggled with understanding how great God’s love is because of my tendency to over analyze everything. In my mind, if I was constantly finding myself feeling inadequate and noticing every mistake, every shortcoming I had then certainly the God that sent his son to die on my behalf, who is perfect in all his ways would be that much MORE disappointed in me. When things went wrong in my life I interpreted it as punishment for falling short in God’s eyes and I knew that’s what I deserved.
And now I find myself a parent to toddlers. Toddlers who make lots of mistakes. And I know they are going to make mistakes before they even make them. That, however, does not decrease their worth to me. It doesn’t change my love for them. I’m not following them around waiting for them to make a mistake so I can chastise them. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. While I know that the natural consequences of their mistakes are going to teach them cause and effect, I hurt when they hurt. I don’t delight in their pain and my focus is not to punish, but to gently lead them by example, to guide them rather than force them. And I want them to get to know me, I want them to know my heart for them. Because if they understand how much I love them, they will eventually understand that anything I ask of them is to help them. Isn’t that the way God loves us?
I remember holding my daughter as she cried because she had fallen after I had already warned her to stop doing what she was doing so she didn’t get hurt. When she did inevitably end up with a little accident I ran to her and scooped her up and said “You see baby, Mommy wasn’t telling you not to do that to be mean. I was trying to protect you. I don’t want you to get hurt because I love you.” And I felt a still small voice remind me “…that’s how I love YOU.” In the deepest depths of my heart there was no part of me that was disappointed in my daughter when she fell. I wasn’t even mad at her. She was 2 and I know impulse control is a difficult thing at that age. And when I examined MY heart when she fell short, I was overwhelmed with what God’s heart must feel towards us.
His love is perfect. The Bible says the Lord takes great delight in us. Not that he tolerates us and is constantly annoyed by our mistakes. And yet we tip toe around him like that’s exactly what we are. And look, we’re never going to be enough, never going to be worthy. But that doesn’t matter to him at all. And as for “bad things” happening in our lives. Not one hair falls from your head without him knowing about it. He is completely aware of your every circumstance far before it even happens and He’s not going to let anything happen to you that isn’t for the betterment of His kingdom (whether we understand exactly how the trials we go through are apart of his master plan here on earth or not). And when those trials cause you to feel sorrow, you are not alone in that sorrow. The God who formed you in your mother’s womb treasures you so greatly that his heart breaks along with yours. And if you ask, He will offer you more than enough peace to walk through anything this life has to offer.
When you get a hold of what God’s love means, it will change you profoundly. In starting to understand it, I am able to love others better because of how He loves me. Now that I am finally starting to understand how treasured we are, I cannot help but to share it with you. I pray that, if you are reading this, that you are able to get a grasp on how incredibly special you are to God, just as you are right now. Whether you live your life for him or against him, whether you are sold out to him or whether you are angry with him. With baggage or without baggage. He loves you, dearly. Just as you are right now. There is no greater love.