Words of Faith

 

“I love you, “ I reminded my friend, in an effort to encourage and uplift.

 

“I know.” My friend smiled confidently back.

 

“You do?” I was a bit surprised at the surety of tone. It wasn’t arrogance, just confidence.

 

“Of course.”

 

“Well how can you be so sure of my love for you?” I wasn’t taking it back or playing a game; I really wanted to know.

 

Now the surprised look came from my friend, “You just told me.”

 

“Well, yes I did, but you are so sure of it.”

 

“Did you lie?”

 

“No…”

 

“Then I believe you. I take you at your word.”

 

“OK.”

 

“You tell me often, and show me even more frequently through your kindness and actions. I believe you, so I know that you love me.”

 

 

That pretty much settled it for my friend, but I still had questions. Perhaps it is my own personal insecurities getting in the way here, but how can a person be so sure of someone’s love for them? The reasons given for this surety certainly made sense. If a person says, “I love you,” and shows with loving actions the sincerity of those words- why doubt? Why not be confident and secure in that love and let it be? Well, the dilemma seems to be solved, however, it also raises another question in my always-running mind.

 

If we can be confident and happy and rest in the knowledge that someone else loves and accepts us, with all our little idiosyncrasies, why do so many of us have such a difficult time believing and really getting down into our souls the fact that God loves us. We can accept that the people in our lives love us, and know that we are secure in that love, but we have the hardest time grasping God’s infinite and overwhelming love for us.

 

The best we can do as human beings is love others with our own emotions and will, and allow (as best we can) the love of God to flow through us to others. God’s love, however, knows no human bounds, and does not have to be channeled through His human servants. It can flow directly from His heart to ours. It is a love like no other. It is above all we think or imagine it to be. God’s love for each of us is outrageous, lavish, wild and crazy, over the top, illogical, incomprehensible, impassioned, and indestructible- just to name a few. (Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us! I John 3:1) God’s love for us consumes His total being, so much so, that He gave His ONLY Son, to die an untimely and utterly humiliating tortured death, just so He could have us back with Him forever. (John 3:16) Is there any king you know that loves you so much that they would have given their life in such a degrading, torturous and horrifying way as public, Roman crucifixion, at age 33, for you?

 

And yet, God did, in the person of Jesus. 

 

I may be the only one in the world who does this, but I find myself doubting at times. It is difficult enough to believe that people love me, but God? For some reason, when the Lord whispers in my ear, “I love you,” my first response is usually not- I know. It is more likely something like, “You do?” or “Are you sure?” or “OK, but…do you remember who I am and what I am really like?” No masks here with God. I can’t have a great day with the Lord and then just go back to the comfort of my own home or space. He is in that home and space with me! He knows it all! He never gets a break from me. How can He still love me so completely? And since He tells me and shows me every day that He does… why on earth do I doubt Him??

 

The key is in what my friend had to say- you told me, you back it up with actions; I believe you. It comes down to believing God. (Hmm, I wonder if I should dust off my copy of Beth Moore’s Believing God book on my shelf) It comes down to God telling each one of us that He is madly in love with us, showing us evidence of that love in big and small ways throughout our days, and us responding to him confidently- I know. Until we know that we know, that we know, deep in the recesses of our souls, the surety and security of God’s love to us, how can we really say that we love others? We don’t know how to give out something that we aren’t real sure we have. We can sing Jesus loves me this I know, but we have to do more than hope that it is true, or even trust that it is true. We have to believe Him and know that it is true.

 

We have to see the reality of our life in Christ. God the Father suffered excruciating pain in allowing Jesus to walk the earth, suffer like He did, and ultimately die a gruesome and innocent death. Jesus literally went through hell for us. His death was horrifying, humiliating, excruciating, inhumane and innocent. And it was love that brought Him to earth and kept Him on the cross, until it was finished, for us.

 

With that knowledge and belief in Him, how DARE I question His love for me. The enemy of God and our souls wants us bound by doubt and fear and unbelief. He wants us thinking we are such wretches that we can never be sure of God’s love for us. However, Jesus declares loudly and boldly that he loves us with an everlasting love. He proved it in the past on the cross, and He proves it every day when He wakes us up to a new day and says- wait until you see what I have in store for you today, and He promises the ultimate reality of His redeeming love when He says- I’m going to get the place ready for you, so we can be together forever, you and me.

 

The reality is that we were wretches. The reality is God loves us so much; He took our wretchedness on Him. He took care of the problem and made us whole, and wretches no more! The reality is He loves us with an everlasting, unconditional love that knows no bounds. The reality is that we can believe Him when He speaks to us. He does not lie. He does not even stretch the truth. We can be sure He is telling the absolute truth, and whether He whispers in our ear, or shouts through the sky, “I LOVE YOU!” We can look into his wonderful face and lovingly smile back confidently, “I know.”

Esther is my traveling companion, but our tastes in traveling music are anything but compatible. On the long commutes to work on the days that I actually have to “go in” to the official office, there is usually a dispute, or at least difference of opinion as to what the musical fare for the trip will be.

 

Most times we reach a compromise, but on this particular return from the office trip, Esther’s choice was getting on my last nerve. After a day of meetings, it probably was not just the music, but I finally asked her to turn it at least down, and preferably off. Her response was, “Oh Mom, you just don’t have an ear for my music.”  She is right. I can’t figure it out. I really like a variety of types and styles of music, as long as I can hear and understand the lyrics of the song. Unless the song is an instrumental, what good is it if you cannot decipher the lyrics? Kind of defeats the purpose of the song in my book.

 

Esther’s comment also brought to mind the scripture that says, “He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.”  In our life of relationship with Jehovah God, we have to fine-tune our ears to hear His voice in the midst of the cacophony of other sounds that vie for our attention in this world. We hear many things during the coarse of a single day, and I dare say that most of it we should just let “ go in one ear and out the other,” as my mother would say. However, each day God is, in His still small voice, speaking important words to us that we need to zone in on and pay close attention to. We need to have ears to hear Him.

 

I mentioned earlier that I needed to be able to hear the lyrics of a song clearly. That is a big issue of mine.  In Esther’s music, with the brisk tempo, all the cymbals and drums and electric guitars, I can’t ever make out what the singers are saying. In our discussions of the music, I have expressed this concept to her and, to my surprise, she can tell me, or sing to me, as the case may be, the entire lyrics of the songs. She knows them all. “How can you do that?” I exclaim. “Mom,” she says, as I overlook (this time) the rolling of her eyes, “I listen to it!”  She implies that if I would just listen to it, I, too, would be able to hear and understand the words. But she was right at the beginning. I just don’t have an ear for it. I don’t have an ear to hear the words in all that commotion of sound. And that is our problem with the Lord sometimes. We don’t have an ear tuned in to hear His voice in the commotion of our lives, and we are missing out.

 

So how do we get the ear to hear? My little Esther did not always listen to the same music she listens to now. She had to make a choice. She decided what she wanted to listen to from all the things she was hearing, and then she listened to that on a regular basis. She knows the lyrics because she has been listening to the same songs over and over. It is not like me, who wants to listen to the song the first time and know what the lyrics are from the get go. It is the same with the Lord and us. We have to choose what and Who we want to listen to in the hubbub of our lives, and then train our ear to zero in on that, and focus on it purposely and fervently. That is how we develop an ear to hear. We too, can learn the lyrics of the Lord’s song as He sings His will into our ears to hear.  I am working on developing that ear, for my and Esther’s sake.