You can't find 4 words that have the ability to make a father crumble more than these. They are powerful words when strung together that way. They give an eight year old the ability to make a grown man stop dead in his tracks. It's unfortunate, but I think we have all uttered that phrase at one point in our lives...I remember my Dad telling me many times that I would 'understand once I had kids of my own.' He was right. There are times when I wish that I could go back and undo the things I have said to my Dad over the years, but this is the one phrase that tops the list.
My eight year old daughter has thrown that at me a few times, and each time I feel like I have been punched in the stomach by Evander Holyfield (not that would know how that really feels). In that moment I welled up with so many emotions: anger, love, sadness, frustration. If you've heard those words come flying at you, you probably felt the same way. I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and hug her so tight, but at the same time I felt like yelling at her, "YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU!! YOU ARE EVERYTHING TO ME!! DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT HURTS ME TO HEAR YOU SAY THAT!!" I'm man enough to admit that I cried when she first said it to me. She could not possibly understand the depth or width of my love or the lengths I would go to protect her and care for her or her brother and sister. It breaks my heart just thinking about it. I really could not understand how my Dad must have felt until I had kids of my own.
I cannot help but think that my reaction to hearing those words is but a drop in a bucket compared to how God must feel. He breathed life into us, has watched us grow up, has seen us take our first step, heard us speak our first words. Yet so many of us act like He's not there. We spend years convinced that he's not real and ignore him even after we acknowledge His existence. We call ourselves His children, but curse His name and disobey Him and get mad at Him when things aren't going our way. He doesn't let us have something we want and we turn into little children and throw a tantrum and say, "You don't love me!" Oh, how that must break His heart.
I can imagine God turning quiet as He sits down on His throne. He buries His face in His hands and begins to sob quietly. After a few moments pass, He wipes the tears away and raises His head with a much different look on His face - one of anger, yet at the same time sorrow and love. He stands up and begins to speak with a tender voice that sounds like thunder, "YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU!! YOU ARE EVERYTHING TO ME!! DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT HURTS ME TO HEAR YOU SAY THAT?! THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN MAKE ME STOP LOVING YOU!"
I've read many verses in the Bible that tell us of God's love for us, but had such a hard time fully understanding it until my children came along. We can love a pet or our favorite sports team, and we sure can love our spouse and our children - but none of that compares to the way God loves us. And what does He ask in return? Nothing. Sure, we can pray and read the Bible and go to church and help others, but we can't earn His love or do anything to make Him stop loving us. He loved us even before we wanted to recognize Him. Revelation 3:20 tells us, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock..." He stands out there in the rain, the snow, the wind - He watches as we open the door for others but don't even glance His way. Yet he stands there and continues to knock. He pursues us because He loves us. He knows what's best for us and uses our circumstances, both good and bad, to teach us and guide us. He gave his life because He loves us. "For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son..." (John 3:16)
As I go forward in this journey of learning about love, I need first to have a firm grasp of God's love. I will be exploring that in my next few posts. I hope that this process will, either through words or how I live it out, help someone out there to see God's love for the first time.
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