The Struggle to Believe God’s Love

by Susan Sampson

How do I take the truth that God is love and He loves me to heart and believe it and abide in that love?

I honestly don’t know how to write about this because this continues to be a struggle for me – believing God loves me and living and resting in that love. I am still battling to uproot the lie that love is a feeling! This is what the world would have us believe. But this is not how God speaks of love. Love is both a noun and a verb. God is love and our love for God and for others is demonstrated by our obedience. God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us on the cross. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

We are called to walk by faith and not by sight. We must stop allowing our feelings to shepherd us and follow our Good Shepherd, Jesus. This is a battle because the old sin patterns are deep. The pathways are well tread. We must choose a totally new traffic pattern. We must no longer go down the sinful roads of worry and anger and instead follow our Lord down the highway of holiness.

In order to follow Him, I must know and believe His Word. I must believe He loves me even though many days it doesn’t feel like it or look like it from my limited and human perspective. I have to believe the truth of His Word, so when bad things are happening in my life and in the lives of those I love, I can still hold onto the truth that God is love and He loves me!

God’s ways are clearly not our ways. He is sovereign and He is therefore in control of all things. And He does allow bad things to happen in all of our lives for our good and for His glory. What really got to me in the lecture is when Laurie said that I can’t reason in my mind, “This is bad.” That is arrogant!

“The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” (Psalm 145:9)

“The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.” (Psalm 145:13)

“The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works.” (Psalm 145:17)

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

I had a sweet picture of this recently. My mom has been trying to sell her house since just after my dad passed away earlier this year. They have a beautiful home and we all thought it would sell quickly. She quickly found a new house to buy that was going to require some work. We all agreed, and I thought this was the house the Lord had for the new season of her life. Then one problem happened after another. It was a very difficult time for all of us. Mom finally made the difficult decision to let the house go.

Within the past two weeks, she has a contract on her house and has found a new house and they have accepted her offer. This new house is a thousand times better than the house she tried to buy earlier this year. What was a “bad time” in our lives was in reality the Lord leading her to the sweetest and most beautiful home which really needs no work at all; but we couldn’t understand or see at that time.

God is love. He demonstrated His amazing love at the cross. We must fix our eyes on Him; believe His love is true and real; believe His Word and not our feelings which continually change moment by moment and cannot be trusted. We then must obey His Word out of love for the Lord.

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:9-11).

I am fighting to believe God loves me and rest in His love!