Love Above All

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.  His love endures forever." Psalm 136:1.

     Psalm 136 lists 26 examples of why God's love endures forever.  Each example is followed by the chorus "His love endures forever". The examples include God's major actions in human history up to the point when the Psalm was written.  For me, the point of the psalm is simple: God does everything because he loves.  He created in order that he might have the opportunity to share love.  Every action, thought, and impulse God has toward humanity is based in love.  Power, justice, goodness, compassion, wrath, discipline, holiness...they all are rooted in love.  There is no other single concept that could so scandalously be synonymous with divinity (1 John 4:8).
     But these facts cannot seem to purge my consciousness of the notion that God may be rooted in something else.  Like power, or justice, or expectations on my life.  Lets be honest, I forget that God loves me.  Not in a theological sense, but in the way that I relate to him on a daily basis.  I forget that everything that happens to me happens in the sight of a God who loves me.  I forget that love is not rooted in my productivity as a disciple or my growth as a pastor.  It isn't based on my success as a father or my compassion as a husband.  God's love for me is not contingent upon how hard I try or how many people I share his mercy with.  It doesn't depend on what other people think of me or my hidden thoughts that I want no one to know about.  God's love for me doesn't end because I sometimes don't want to be loved or because I live like one unloveable.  It doesn't cease because I screw up or give up or stop up.  It doesn't quit because it becomes weary of loving me or because it finds something more easy to love somewhere else. No.  God is love. And that fact has nothing to do with me.
     God loves me because it is his essence and character.  God loves because he created to love.  Period.  That is why the psalmist repeats the phrase 26 times.  Maybe he or she forgot too.  No matter what God does in our lives and in human history, we can follow it with the promise "his love endures forever."  We cannot change the fact that God loves us.  But we can live in the freedom that comes with trusting that love defines our relationship with him above all else.  Try and believe that.  One day at a time.

"Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go,  today your love is reality.  May everything else fade away.  Only then can I begin to live in the fullness of your intention.  With my tiny heart and life...I love you too."

Question to readers: What notion of God gets in the way of knowing his love for you more perfectly?

For me: putting the idea that he expects a lot from me ahead of his pure love.