He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

People are fickle. They change. They don’t change. They treat you like royalty. They treat you like trash. Their freewill functions to your benefit or detriment depending on the circumstance.  Since relationships can be tricky and feel at times like obstacle courses, we tend to believe God fits into the mold of whatever individual has treated us poorly. We harken back to the game we played as children picking petals off a daisy, “He loves me. He loves me not.” We infer that God can change His mind about us, or worse, He is just judgmental and mean.

Believers can be judgmental and mean. Nonbelievers can be judgmental and mean. Anyone can be, but God, He cannot. He cannot because that is the antithesis of His nature. He loves us, because He loves us, because He loves us, because He loves us, because that is Who He is.

“I see strength. You’ve been through the ashes. You’ve been burned. I see burnt ashes down around your feet,” words expressed by a gifted stranger. I have experienced betrayal. Chances are you have also.  “Et tu, Brute’” is no longer a line from a Shakespeare play,  nor a  kiss on the cheek, a distant example from a Sunday school lesson.

One morning I was driving to work, processing and agonizing deeply the pain of exposed deception and injustice. In a minute or two waiting at a red light I had one of the most intimate encounters. Jesus was caressing my head to His chest. He kissed my forehead, my cheeks. He stroked my hair.  His embrace was gentle, yet transforming.  I was crying, so was He!  He was feeling the same depth of sorrow.  My pain was His pain.

On another occasion: alone, seated on my bedroom floor, legs curled to my chest, head down, my hands obscuring my face.  Tears flowed in proportion to the predicament.  “Father what do You make of all of this? What do You say?”  A few minutes passed. I listened intently for the response.  Deep from within my spirit came the tenderest of voices, the subtle, quiet whispers that could have been overlooked had my heart not been so well trained.  “I am here.”

He is here with me.  He is there with you. That makes all the difference.  I actively pursue and pray for BIG supernatural occurrences. I do! Yet, my petitions for miracles often yield results of unanticipated kinds, horses of different colors.  I contemplated God’s message, “I am here.”   I didn’t bypass the sting. However, I spied the distress from a differing viewpoint. In Him, with Him, through Him, not abandoned, discarded, or alone after all. “I am here.” Supporting, seeing, sensing, redeeming, experiencing, holding, nurturing. He was catching my tears because they are of significant worth to Him.

What did it cost Him to be “there” with me in my misery?  Everything. It cost Him everything to gain ME, my attention, my heart, my scars, my strengths, my weaknesses, my infractions and my hardships.  He laid down the glories of heaven and grew as infant in a teenager’s womb, so that when I cry out, He is available to answer.

His love and affection are not fickle. They are unchanging, tried, true. He loves me. He loves me. He loves me. He loves me.  I am His.