I asked my kiddos one day how they knew I loved them. It was a question a Christian author I follow asked her kids and she was surprised at the responses.
Now her children were older and, in their teens and responded with answers like, “You help me when I’m struggling”, and “You’re always rooting for me”, things I want my children to say about me one day.
My children are eight and four. My eight-year-old responded, “because you let me play video games”. My four-year-old had a pretty predictable answer, “because you let me eat candy”.
Both of my kids’ answers were based on me giving them something that made them happy. Something that gave the joy and felt or tasted good.
It made me wonder, do they think I don’t love them when I don’t give them candy or let them play video games?
So, I made the mistake of asking these little growing brains if they only loved me when I gave them things.
My eight-year-old said, “No, I know you love me all the time but you love me more when you give me things”.
My four-year-old said, with a very serious facial expression, “yep”, and kept playing with her Barbie like she didn’t just personally rip my heart out of my chest.
Then I felt it, or Him I should say, the Holy Spirit, doing His work through my kids like he has on so many countless occasions.
How often have I tied God’s love to my physical and tangible blessings? How often, when I’m struggling or experiencing a loss weather in a job, or a life of a family member, or a relationship with a fried, do I think quietly to myself, “What did I do God? Why don’t you love me right now?” Now maybe not in those exact words and maybe not that extreme all the time, but I have had that dangerous thought creep into my brain before, “Maybe God doesn’t love me that much after all”.
This is a cunning game the devil likes to play with you. When I say play with you, I don’t mean like a playmate to through a ball with, I mean you’re the ball. You’re a toy that he likes to toss around and see how far and hard he can through you away from your creator.
If we are finding our Joy in the tangible and physical things of this world then we are not truly living a life for Jesus. When we look directly to Jesus as our source of Joy, we will always know that he loves us with a steadfast love that endures forever.
The bible is full of example of God’s love being unconditional, but take the time to read Psalm 136 where the phrase “steadfast love endures forever” is mentioned 26 times!
When you feel like you are separated from God’s love,
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
When you feel like God’s plan isn’t fair,
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29-22-13
When you feel like God doesn’t love you enough, remember what he sacrificed for you.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
Always remember,
“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his steadfast love endures forever.” Psalm 136:1
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