DEVOTION: February 5
Love can often feel big and heart-warming and warm and fuzzy. But sometimes it feels difficult and painful, and is displayed not with a hug or kiss, but with boundary or consequence. It can feel cold and disapproving, like a shadow that passes over you on a chilly day. But our feelings aren’t always an indicator of truth.
We can’t overlook the fact that God is fully love. His love toward us is not just joyful and carefree, it’s also whole and complete. Like any parent knows, love means to also teach and guide and correct; to follow through with consequences because we are helping them grow. To see our child’s potential and guide them so they can reach it.
Adam and Eve experienced this kind of love from God, the kind that comes with teaching and boundaries and consequences. They grievously sinned and disobeyed God’s clear directive. Out of His perfection He was required to make them leave Eden. It doesn’t feel loving, but it’s the most holy kind of love. Because loving God back means taking His word seriously and obeying it.
And yet.
Though they suffered natural consequences of their actions, God still lavishly loved them:
Out of His love, He knit together clothing from animal skins for them, removing the crude and second-rate coverings they knit for themselves.
Out of His love, He gave them them the world to possess and work and see prosper.
Out of His love, He blessed them with offspring and encouraged them to be fruitful.
God doesn’t stop loving you even if life feels hard, or there is immense pain, or you feel kicked out of the garden. He is always loving you exactly where you are. Always. The question is, can you recognize it and allow yourself to be loved by God, right there in the midst of what is hard?
Are there gardens you feel God has kicked you out of? How can you see His love in the middle of the pain?
“But Lord, your nurturing love is tender and gentle. You are slow to get angry yet
so swift to show your faithful love. You are full of abounding grace and truth.”
(Psalm 86:15)