I believe that the worst pain that we can experience as human beings……….is when we are unfairly attacked……..by someone we love. When the attack is fair, when we deserve it, it’s not so bad. When the attack comes from an enemy, it’s not so bad. But, when it comes from someone we love, it is devastating.
I used to tell my sons, “you can only truly hurt the people who love you”. There is some big league irony here. But, this is one of the greatest truths that I know.
To be clear here, I’m not talking about forgetting a birthday. I’m not talking about some unintentional slight. I’m talking about intentionally hurting someone who loves you. We seem to know the power of this. Often, we save our most devastating attacks for those who love us. It’s not hard to do. The people who love us are typically close to us. We know them well.
We know just where to stick the knife.
And this is tragic.
So you are saying to yourself……”that kind of person is a real jerk…….I would never do that!” And, for the most part, you and I don’t attack those who love us.
But, if you honestly think about your relationship with God, you probably don’t have to look too far to find an episode where you threw him under the bus.
Used his name disparagingly.
Lied.
Took something that was not yours.
Disrespected your parent.
Lusted.
Was jealous of another.
Used Sunday to catch up on work.
And that is just working through the commandments.
How far back do you and I need to go…….to find an episode where we failed to love our neighbor? Not far……probably today……….probably the last time we read an inflammatory political post on Facebook…….or watched the evening news.
So…….here is the hard part.
God loves us with an otherworldly kind of love…..a love that is far beyond our understanding. Try to imagine his pain, when we intentionally attack him by ignoring his teaching, by ignoring him, by denying his very existence.
This is hurting someone who loves you……..writ large.
We do it every day.
And yet, God stands there with open arms, with a heart filled with love……..and, I suspect, with a tear in his eye.
The bad news is that we are guilty………just about every day. Guilt is not very fashionable these days. But, it has a purpose. The purpose of guilt is to guide us away from destructive behavior.
The good news is that God does not hold a grudge. He is just like any other parent. When we get finished attacking him, when we turn back to him, he is still waiting and his love is still there.
God’s love is not diminished because of our failures. His love is not diminished because of our attack. His love is not diminished because we simply are not capable of understanding it.
This makes no sense to me……..but it makes sense to my father. And that’s good enough for me.
Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
God, NIV
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Paul, NIV
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul, NIV