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Friday, December 03, 2004

* * * + The God Who Loves Boldly + * * *

[From: A Gentle Thunder]
by Max Lucado

God, I have a question: Why do you love your children?
Why do you tolerate us? You give us every breath we breathe, but do we thank you?
You give us bodies beyond duplication, but do we praise you?

Seldom.

We complain about the weather. We argue over who gets which continent and who has the best gender.
Not a second passes when someone, somewhere, doesn't use your name to curse a hammered thumb or a bad call by the umpire. (As if it were your fault.)

You fill the world with food, but we blame you for hunger.
You keep the earth from tilting and the Arctics from thawing, but we accuse you of unconcern.
You give us blue skies, and we demand rain. You give rain, and we demand sun.
(As if we knew what was best anyway.)

We give more applause to a brawny ball-carrier than we do to the God who made us.
We are a gnat on the tail of one elephant in a galaxy of Africans, and yet we demand that you find us a parking place when we ask.
And if you don't give us what we want, we say you don't exist.
(As if our opinion matters.)

We pollute the world you loan us. We mistreat the bodies you gave us.

We ignore the Word you sent us. And we killed the Son you became.

You have every reason to abandon us. But do you?

I see the answer in the rising of the sun. I hear the answer in the crashing of the waves.
I feel the answer in the skin of a child.

Father, your love never ceases. Never.
Though we spurn you, ignore you, disobey you, you will not change. Our evil cannot diminish your love.
Our goodness cannot increase it. Our faith does not earn it anymore than our stupidity jeopardizes it.
You don't love us less if we fail.
You don't love us more if we succeed.

Your love never ceases.

How do we explain it?

God's love is not human. His love is not normal. His love sees your sin and loves you still.
Does he approve of your error? No.
Do you need to repent? Yes.
But do you repent for his sake or yours? Yours.
His ego needs no apology. His love needs no bolstering.

And he could not love you more than he does right now.

Delight shone in her eyes @ | 1:42:00 am | 0 Comments

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