A Strange Kind of Love!

For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16

The world we live in gives us lots of pictures. We see pictures of families, of life, and of happiness that lead us to believe that things are different from how they really are. If all we had is television to inform our understanding of the most important things of life we would believe a lot of things were true that are not!

For instance, we would think that at the end of the story the good guy always wins. We would think that the nerd always leaves with the girl because she sees something in him that for others is hidden. We would think that if you love someone you give them a diamond from Jarred’s or a Lexus, but that is not what happens in real life. Real life is tricky, it is unpredictable, it’s messy. Sometimes the good guys don’t win, and sometimes the nerd never gets his credit or the girl who he loves. Sometimes good people get hurt, and bad people get away with things at least for a little while. It’s enough to make you want to cry.

There is one thing that we can always count on…it is God. His peace, His joy and his unfailing love. There are times when I don’t understand Him, or even like His choices for me, but I love Him. God has earned my love over and over again, even before I had the good sense to care to know Him or obey Him, He loved me.

I’ve loved a lot of people in my life, but none of them have done for me, what God has done. Even and the tantrums, I have thrown, He has been there. He never got mad at me and walked away, I left, but He didn’t. When I was ready to come back, His door was always open, and ready to take me in with loving arms.

Prodigal Son and Prodigal Daughter, God is there for you! He is answering prayers you didn’t even have the sense to pray, and looking out for you even as you walk out the door determined to go another way. Love is not a car, a house, not even a diamond. He loved you enough to give you the room to make your own choice, but He never stopped sending you love messages letting you know that you could always change your mind. It is a God who loved you in spite of yourself, who looked at you full of the dirt of the far off country, and just saw the child He loves.

Real love looks like sacrifice, a look which says I love you when you walk away and think you can do it on your own. The love that gives you room to get angry, or to make mistakes, and then enough love to take you back with your repetant heart only to say, I never gave up on you.

I don’t know what you are facing or how hard it looks, but He alone is God! He loves you and He has opened the door for you, and welcomed you back home. God has a strange kind of love, it’s not based on us, it is based on the soverign and beauty of Him! It is so large it can hold more planets and people than we could even begin to imagine, and love them all equally.

I don’t know what is holding you back or holding you down, but whatever it is….go back, He’s waiting with all of the strange, wonderful and unconditional love that you could ever imagine or hold!