A Father's Love

Last week, I shared my antidote to fear which was “resting in the love of God”. I realized, soon after I posted, that God’s love is a complicated topic that is worth some exploration. I didn’t see how badly I needed to explore said topic until I realized I had some truly misguided thoughts on it. 

Like everyone who has gone through adolescence, I have struggled to stay consistent with my opinion of authority figures. College was certainly a crucial formation process as it was there that I learned how much structure meant to me. I could decide what I wanted to learn and how well I wanted to learn it. I could get a score and change my behavior to get a better one. Somehow in those formative years of my faith, I began to see God the same way. God makes the rules. You follow the rules, things go well. You can measure your progress by the fruit in your life, much like you can a GPA. The problem here is that, though the formula may work, it leaves out the personality of God who is more than just a professor with a pass/fail margin. I now have the problem of tending to measure my worth based on my spiritual GPA rather than on the blood of Christ. Coming from a world where love is dictated by performance, I sometimes forget that God’s love is constant, consistent, and unchanging, no matter what lessons or trials are happening at the moment. I had to dig deeper into the truths that I know about God’s love and see where I was not applying them to my relationship with him.

The thing is, God’s lessons come from love. But his love does not come from anything. His love simply is, just like God is. There is nothing, no GPA or spiritual discipline or evangelism track record that could make God love any person any more or any less. He simply loves and he loves fully, unconditionally, and personally.

I often remind myself that God cares more about my faith than my happiness. If he puts a bump in my road, I know it is to benefit me and that I will come out stronger in the end. I forget however, that God does still care about my happiness. If the storms come, and sometimes they come once after another without ever clearing up in between, he isn’t just sitting up somewhere far away waiting on my response, he is standing beside me, facing them with me, and wanting me to see that.

Jesus allowed Lazarus to die. He didn’t heal him while he was sick, he specifically waited until he was dead because there was a lesson in faith to be learned through that. He could have showed up, said “suck it up” to his weeping sisters and asked them why their faith was so small before bringing their brother out of his tomb. But instead, he took the time to weep WITH them. He wasn’t mourning for the guy he resurrected a little later, he was coming alongside the sisters who were hurting.

 I can tell myself a hundred times that God only allows pain because there is good to come of it, but he starts to seem so cold and distant when I forget that he cares what I’m going through. He wants me to share my burdens. He will even weep with me. He is patient with us while we learn.

It’s easy to see God as all wrath and authority, and I’ll admit, that comes easier to me and is honestly a more familiar kind of persona for me to believe in, but that is only part of what he does. God knows that because we are human and we do stupid things and we hurt ourselves and each other and there is a very powerful force telling us to do the wrong thing, we need a rulebook. He loved us enough to give us one rather than letting us fall on our faces alone, and he loves us enough to show us what happens when we mess up so we can do it right the next time. Just following the rules isn’t good enough if we fail to see the reason behind the rules and consequence. God wants us to see the Father kneeling down beside us, weeping with us, and wanting a real blunt and honest conversation, not just obedience and stoic resolve.

Like I said, those storms come and sometimes stay a very long time. They can be hard to see past, particularly because Satan would like us to always see the sky as a little cloudy rather than enjoying the bright sunlight, and he’s good at that. But God also prepares joy for us. He wants us to enjoy even the little bit of sunshine and see that it’s from him. If things really are so gray that even that isn’t visible, he’s sitting in the dark with us, waiting it out with us, and holding us when we cry.

I can’t say I always understand God, but I trust him. People ask far too often why a good god allows bad things. We ask “why me?” or “why this”. But the only answer is “why not?” I am not above correction. I am not big enough to see what God has in store. Job didn’t know during his suffering that God would restore him ten fold. Lazarus’ sisters didn’t know as they wept that, not only would their brother live, but they would have the honor of seeing first-hand Christ’s amazing power. Not to mention, it gave the rest of us reason to know Jesus is willing to stop and weep with us even when he’s teaching us. If I could see the whole world at once, I would probably understand better how all of the large-scale suffering in this broken little world could come together and make sense in the end. But I’m not that big. And how arrogant would it be for me to tell God, who is, that he’s doing it wrong or isn’t showing love the way he said he would. So, I stand by my statement that we can rest in the love of God. And I hope to be better at doing so with time.

I know Father's day is hard for some people. I hope anyone reading this who may be dreading tomorrow can look forward to a day spent in quality communion with the only perfect Dad.