After we got married, I made it my mission to find a church home for us. In His utter creativity, God’s church of choice surprised and wowed me. Looking back, I now think I have language for what had me speechless and hungry for more – this church knew God’s love. And as a result, they LOVED Him well; they worshiped Him with full hearts and open hands; they invited others in and loved them – they loved us – well.
For the seven years we rooted ourselves in this community, I basked in the rays of their adoration of God and soaked up every ounce of truth and grace offered to me. I wanted what the women around me had – deep faith and trusting spirits. I longed to worship with abandon – without fear of being judged. I dove into practices like prayer and reading Scripture like never before.
I remember the day I asked God to help me love Him the way He loves me – my heart so full and earnest, I wept. The change in me was nearly imperceptible because it came in daily increments. But, somewhere along the way, I began believing in the love God has for me.
Three decades later, I still marvel at God’s graciousness of placing us in a church home that would set our feet on a firm foundation – one we’ve been building on since. And it all started with God’s love – so beautifully overwhelming that when I think about His love for any length of time, I still weep.
Maybe that’s why my heart so easily cracks and crumbles each time I meet someone who does not know this kind of love.
Doubt
Before those newlywed years in The Woodlands, my adult self had not known God’s love – not really. Before that seven year season, I doubted God’s love. But – during those years – I experienced His love. And everything changed.
Now I wonder, what makes us doubt God’s absolute, perfect love?
- Sometimes we doubt God’s love because we’ve never experienced unconditional love here on earth.
- Other times we can’t fathom such love because we’ve been betrayed and broken by the very people who were meant to love us.
- I think we can even doubt God’s love because so many voices in our world (and heads) tell us there’s no way He’s a loving God – because if He were, then ____ wouldn’t happen.
- And we may not recognize God’s love because we’ve been taught otherwise by pastors who pounded ‘the fear of God’ in us or who just failed to know His love themselves.
When we doubt God’s love, we will believe that His love is based on set conditions and that His expectations are unattainable. As a result, we’ll either close ourselves up in self-preservation or we’ll set out in our striving, trying to earn the love we crave. Trying to prove ourselves worthy of His love.
Dig
I can look back to my childhood to see a little girl who one hundred percent believed Jesus loved her. Even back then I used to write little love notes to people, encouraging them that Jesus loved them. But somewhere – I’m not sure where – that spark of love-rooted faith faded. Maybe someone laughed. Maybe life’s hardships overtook love. Maybe the world’s not-so subliminal messages changed the soil of my thoughts. Or some combination…
By my senior year of high school, parts of my heart still beat for Jesus but there was a darker corner that doubted God was for me – like, maybe His ‘way’ was heavy on the rules because He wasn’t actually very nice. And I let other voices tell me I needed to ‘do good’ and ‘be good’ before God would love me. My doubts sufficiently fed, God’s love felt aloof, absent – hidden.
Dig Deeper
When we doubt God’s love and dig into our stories to get an understanding for why we don’t know His love, we can take all that we are before the Lord and do some naming. Some repenting. Receiving. Releasing. And more receiving.
Digging into God’s Word helps us find truth, and when we make space for it to do a work in us, broken places get healed. Hungering holes get filled. Hearts and minds align with each other and with our Father’s.
Though the mountains be shaken
Isaiah 54:10
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8 ESV
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9
Discovery
Isaiah’s poetic voice helps us grasp how BIG God’s love is, how permanent, how eternal. His love lasts longer than any mountain, ever.1 God’s love never fails, and unlike those quaking mountains, His love for us will never be shaken.
The ‘most beloved disciple’ spends a gospel and three letters writing about the love of God. John eventually comes right out and names it – God. Is. Love. Think about it – our Father is completely saturated with love to the point of being Love. Which means, there’s no room in Him for anything that’s not love.
The doubts I’d held about God’s motives and lack of kindness had no legs to stand on when confronted with the truth of God’s very character being love. But, what about the inner drive so many of us carry within us to ‘earn’ God’s love? The truth about that can be found by looking at Jesus.
Jesus. The Anointed One. Messiah. The Son of God hung out with sinners. From tax collectors to the demon-possessed, Jesus ate meals with and walked through life with people deemed the lowest of the low, the worst of the worst. Jesus demonstrated for everyone what God’s brand of love looks like.
“Jesus’ narrative of unconditional acceptance goes against the grain of the performance-based acceptance narrative that is so deeply embedded in our lives. How could God possibly love sinners? He might be able to forgive them and even love them if they promise to improve. But this is not what Jesus taught. In actions and words He proclaimed that God loves sinners – as they are, not as they should be.”
James Bryan Smith2
Thirty years ago, God in His grace set out to show me love – through the people He put in my path at our church home and through His Word. Love was coming at me from all sides, and when I landed on John 3:16, I read with newly opened eyes and heart – God so loved. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.
One Good Friday in The Woodlands all the love-lessons came to a head.
After our young, unknown-at-the-time worship leader* had us sing some heart-softening songs, we were asked to be silent in our reflection of what the day meant. When from behind us came a series of slow, metallic sounds – of a hammer hitting a big, iron nail. Each ringing clank echoed under the pavilion, filling the silence. And my heart. It was in those reverberating moments that I finally knew the love of Christ. The words of Scripture, the love of people, and the experience of that Good Friday converged, connecting the dots for me for the first time. God. loves. me.
And all that love began covering the darkness of doubt that had been hiding in my heart.
Woven tightly with God’s love is the element of His grace. As God’s love consistently pours over us with favor, we know grace.3 Grace is the showing of unconditional love on those who don’t deserve it. Grace is unmerited. Unearned. It’s the “kind intention of His will.”3 Scripture describes God as gracious (Psalm 103:8-10). God says it of Himself – He is gracious (Exodus 34:6).
When we’re tempted to doubt God’s love, it helps to remember that He “doesn’t count [our] success and failures to determine who receives His love or life.”3 There are no conditions, no proving ourselves worthy. He alone is worthy – and by Christ’s shed blood we are made worthy of all God has for us. Because of His all-sufficient grace (2 Corinthians 12:9), God freely and fully gives us love, as well as every other gift of goodness.
And, here’s the craziest, coolest part – this kind of love that God offers is not given out of duty but delight (Psalm 147:11). While we’re busy digging for treasure about God? He’s treasuring us.3
Friends, we are never, ever more loved because we do things for God or when people give us praise or…for any other reason.4 No, our God loves us fully just as we are. And He loves us enough to draw us into relationship with Him so that His love can shape and transform us – for our good and His glory.
As we seek to deepen our awareness of God’s love for us, let’s head to those hidden spaces – physically, spiritually – and meet with Him there because our “hearts prosper most in the secret, with God.”4 It’s our safe place to lay down our doubts and dig into His love.
Because our God, He is love.
Father God, the fact that You chose to send your one and only Son to earth to die for us is all we need to know about your love for us — because there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. We are humbled and grateful for this love that You continue to lavishly pour out on us. Any doubts about your love for us, Father, we bring to You now and ask You to shine your light on it, uncovering the roots of such doubts. Holy Spirit, we need your help to open up all the corners of our hearts, revealing the un-truths that keep us from receiving God’s free and gracious love. Help us to name those doubts and to lay them at Jesus’ feet. Be our courage in the process, trusting that You will always advocate for us and speak to us the words of the Father. Lord Jesus, thank You for living life here on earth so that we might see what God’s love looks like, both in action and word. All the ways You loved people unconditionally shows us that striving to earn the Father’s love is not needed at all. He loves us just as we are. We can come to Him just as we are. We can receive His love without trying to prove ourselves worthy because You demonstrated for us that, by grace, He offers love freely. So, we extend our hands and hearts to You now, giving You all our doubts and taking in God’s love. We know we have nothing to fear because God is love. In your holy name we pray, amen.
(inspired by John 3:16, 15:13; 1 John 3:1; John 1:4-5; 1 Corinthians 2:9-10; Romans 5:5; Psalm 55:22; Acts 4:8,13; John 14:26, 16:13; Romans 5:8; Ephesians 1:6; Isaiah 41:10; 1 John 4:8,16)
*the young, unknown worship leader in the early 90s at The Woodlands Methodist? None other than Chris Tomlin. I know. I know…
Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.
- 1 – This article elaborates a little on this Isaiah verse.
2 – James Bryan Smith in his book Good and Beautiful God^
3 – This Bible Project article is a deep dive into what grace means; it’s rich! And it’s fun to see how grace and love flow together.
4 – Christy Nockels in her book The Life You Long For^ - Our Backpack of God’s Attributes is our virtual bag for collecting every characteristic of God we find in all our hunting. Acknowledging God is REAL, we can now load up all we discover about Him. So far:
- God is Worthy — He deserves all glory and honor and praise.**
- God is Glorious — He displays His greatness and worth.**
- God is Transcendent — He is not like humans. He is infinitely higher in being and action.**
- God is Truthful — Whatever God speaks or does is truth and reality.**
- God is Incomprehensible — God is beyond our understanding. We can comprehend Him in part but not in whole.**
- God is Love — God feels and displays infinite, unconditional affection toward His children. His love for them does not depend on their worth, response, or merit.**
- God is Gracious — The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love (Psalm 145:8).
- **many thanks to Jen Wilkin and her list, “Attributes of God,” present at the back of every study
- On our new playlist, “Hidden Treasures,” Riley Clemmons croons the truth we need to cling to. We should probably sing this song everyday — at least until we believe it:
Sometimes the doubt starts creeping in
So come remind me once again
I am believed in, I am held onto
Don’t have to wonder who I belong to
I’m always wanted , always known,
and always treasured, it’s true
I am loved by You - If you want to hear just a little more about today’s topic, you can catch the “Teacup Video” on this topic on Wednesday — on my Facebook Author Page, Instagram or YouTube.
- In the June edition of my newsletter, The Abiding Life, I shared stories of God’s faithfulness as I’ve wrestled with doubts about writing this particular series. What I’m realizing as I continue to write what I’m learning is that I’ve had more doubts about God throughout my life than I realized. It’s a little scary to name them, but we aren’t judged for them. Rather, we’re set free from them when we can admit them, name them, and hand them over. What doubt do you carry these days? If you didn’t get your June newsletter, email me. You can subscribe for future newsletters here.
Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike.
Praise, our summer rhythm, is the speaking of truths about WHO GOD IS. It lifts our eyes off our circumstances and back onto the One who can walk us through them. And the Psalms are packed with poems that will lead us through this ritual of reflection and remembrance — until it becomes a rhythm that we fall into naturally.
- This week, let’s read Psalm 136. As you read it, think of it as a liturgical responsive reading — hear it in your mind as the pastor speaking the first line and the congregation responding with the repetitive statement of faith, His love endures forever. And if that’s hard for you to imagine, check out the song I added to our playlist, “Forever.” Yup, by Chris Tomlin. 😉
- Praise for who He is pours out of our hearts and mouths and rises to the heavenlies as pure worship. Even on the days that we feel less-than or overwhelmed or covered up by grief, praise can be our sacrifice, ascribing to God every praise – not because He is vain but because He alone is worthy of our praise. No matter how we feel. This kind of praise requires a dig-deep kind of faith. And as we lift Him up, we’ll find ourselves carried along by a faith that rises above doubts and darkness.
- And while it’s not a spiritual practice or rhythm, I invite you to share this site. Summer is a great time to ask someone else to join us here — it is a shared journey of faith, for sure!
Featured Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash. “All the Bits and Pieces” photo by Zrng N Gharib on Unsplash.
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You had me at the picture of the gold wrapped chocolate! The rest of the post was bonus!
Haha. That’s awesome 💜