God loves you in spite of you. Not because he has to, but he wants to.
Think about this concept for a minute. mind-blowing, really. God loves us IN SPITE OF US. everything about us is running desperately away from him. everything about this world tears us away from his embrace; feeds us lies that we don’t need him, that he isn’t there; whispers in our ear that we can fix ourselves, that life is too short to do anything but please ourselves. we encounter little moments i which our soul screams into our lives SOMETHING IS MISSING! YOU CAN’T DO THIS ALONE. LIFE SHOULDN’T BE THIS WAY. most of the time we ignore it. or we forget it. most of the time, we try…and fail. we try to “do life” on our own, but things never go quite as well as we planned. we try to listen & follow God—but we live in a world that fosters the opposite. there is just SO MUCH about ourselves that we cover up—we feel the need to look like good people, so we “act” like good people act. God, however, doesn’t look at us the way the world does. He looks at our hearts. No matter how easily we can fool other people, we can never, ever fool God. I know that when Jesus looks into my heart, he sees all of the filth & dirtiness & wretchedness. AND YET. he loves me in spite. he loves you in spite. in spite of the fact that you doubt his existence. in spite of the fact that you doubt his plan. in spite of the fact that you live IN the world and OF the world. in spite of the fact that you have deemed your heart “unfixable”. in spite of the fact that you let yourself be molded by your friends, be molded by the media, be molded by the world. in spite of the fact that you let others determine your identity and your value. HE LOVES US IN SPITE OF ALL THIS CRAP. you know how you watch scary movies & scream at the girl on the television to NOT DO what she is about to do?! because, let’s be honest—most of the time they are just setting themselves up for being killed. have you ever heard of the buddy system? or turning on the light? i used to imagine jesus looking down on us from heaven, shaking his head & yelling at us—“NO NO NO! don’t go that way! turn on the light, at least!! ugh…it’s okay, don’t worry… i gotcha & will come clean your mess”. i’ve always known that God SLASH jesus loves us with a CRAZY, UNBRIDLED love. most of the time, though, i feel like he loves me because he has to. he created me, he made plans for me, he’s my father. of course he loves me! but no—he loves us because he wants to love us. he doesn’t watch us mess up, complain about it & then come to our beck & call because he has to. he is there, by our side, because he wants to. instead of sitting, yelling at the screen—he walks with us in life, holding our hand, just wondering when we will look over and notice him. when we examine our hearts, it’s hard to see past the dirtiness & mistakes & the ways we have fallen short. God, however, is the only one able to see past it—because he is THE ONLY ONE able to clean it. yes, he sees the ways we have turned away & he hurts because of it. but he also sees our hearts for how he made them—he sees us as wonderfully, beautifully made masterpieces. he loves us in spite of us. he does it because he wants to. when we are bound up in the world, we like to imagine him as far away..maybe non-existent. pre-occupied at best. instead, he is holding our hand—pressing into our palms the key to unlock our chains, waiting for us to notice.
