I Don’t Know

I don’t know what your day has been like.  What stresses arose. The rejections you faced. The anger that rose like a tsunami in your life. Or worse, the complacency and apathy of being treated as if you were invisible. I don’t know the trouble, the pain, the illness that colored every waking moment. I didn’t see the worry and anxiety that assaulted you at every turn or the bear trap of circumstance that gripped your heart. I wasn’t there when the baby cried or the check bounced or when the car wouldn’t start. I don’t know, I didn’t see, I wasn’t there as you faced these things today but I know who was.

My prayer this morning was very simple – Lord, what do your people need to hear? The answer back was just as simple and straightforward  – “Tell them that I love them.” God loves you. No matter what happened today. Whether today was a mountaintop day filled with joy, celebration, and success or a day in the deepest dungeon filled with anger, frustration, and loss. God loves you. Or if you chose to live in the hog slop of sin God loves you. Even if you chose to wallow in the muck of self-pity or the plastic fakeness of self-righteousness God loves you. Even if you shout from the highest tower with the loudest megaphone that God is a myth, a fairy tale, a lie – God loves you.

God’s love is not that squishy love where anything goes. God’s love is that of a parent that wisely guides their children to maturity; providing for their needs but not necessarily their wants. A love that encourages growth, cheers success, corrects failure, and disciplines rebellion. His love never gets tired, never gives up hope, always gives room for forgiveness, never leaves us, and never ever fails. The Bible says,  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38–39, NASB95)  The question isn’t whether God loves us, the question is whether we love God.

I don’t know what your day was like, but I do know that God loves you.  You may not know it, you may not feel it, you may try to run and hide from it but He loves you anyway. So tomorrow, when things go wrong, when anger flares, when you are rejected, when you are treated as if you are invisible, when pain hits, when sorrow moans, when illness happens, when worry and anxiety come knocking at your door, when the baby cries, when the check bounces, when the car doesn’t start just remember one thing, run to one truth, God loves you.

I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave, you are there.
If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.

(Psalm 139:7–12, NLT)  

Dale Heinold
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