Your Lovingkindness

by Laurie Aker

The Lord can seem so close at times and yet so far. We want to talk with Him, yet He seems out of reach. We cry out, yet we are not sure if He has heard. Our heart reverberates with a longing that we don’t know how to satisfy; then a fog settles in, clouding our vision, and the dampness of doubt and mistrust snuffs our expectations. The longing remains, but now it is weighted with disillusionment. Faith must overcome or our love will fade. We must fight the temptation to question God’s goodness and lovingkindness.

Comprehending how much God cares about us or how deeply He loves us can feel well beyond our reach, particularly when we are wrestling with some of the crazy stuff that happens in our lives—not only the big things, but the small things. In fact, more than we want to admit it’s the small things that take us down: the disappointments, the nagging thoughts, the lonely nights, the misunderstandings, unrealized dreams. Insidiously, the incessant minutia of everyday life can whittle away our faith; unknowingly our weather-worn foundation begins to crumble in disrepair. We know intellectually that God’s Word repeatedly tells us He loves us and cares for us like a mother cares for her newborn child and that He will never will leave us or for- sake us. Jesus implores, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Lk. 12:6-7). But we have a hard time believing.

God often administers His love, care, and protection differently than we would, so in “trusting” Him and His Word we apply our own thinking and insight. We doubt, we question, and we worry. Our faith teeters because our foundation of belief is unstable. It isn’t because there is something wrong with God’s love; it is because His lovingkindness is beyond our comprehension.

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God’s love is the most powerful, yet gentle, force in the universe, and it has the power to heal the deepest wound, transform the most deformed life, fill the greatest void, and even bring the dead back to life. Getting our minds or our hearts around this love can be an expanse that seems beyond our reach. Because His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts, we are often unaware of His loving and merciful hand at work in our lives. God’s love for us can’t be measured by the circumstances we find ourselves in. Too often, our eyes are fixed on our failures, distracted by our surroundings, or cued into the world’s perspective. Thankfully God’s love is not dependent us—on our love, on our understanding, on our circumstances, or on our ability. He loves us unconditionally. He makes a way where there seems to be no way.

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This blog post is an excerpt from the Thistlebend Discipleship Study Falling in Love Again with Your Lord available here.