God’s Deep, Rich Love

Last week was a crazy week for my family and me. We had one of those weeks where the entire family was sick, but it all started with my youngest son Jet. He could not keep food down and ended up becoming critically dehydrated. My wife took him to the doctor and they told her to go directly to the ER. Now, it is hard to understand what I went through in those moments between my wife calling me to meet her in the ER, and when I actually arrived there unless you are a parent. I completely lost it in the car and found myself weeping. I was overwhelmed with how much I love my son, and when he is hurt, I hurt. My son received an IV and was fine after seven hours in the hospital, but in the days that followed, I kept going back to me in my truck and the emotions I was feeling. In our culture, the word “love” is overused and diluted. We “love” our San Antonio Spurs, dogs, bratwursts, skittles, miniature horses, The Goonies, etc., and we throw family and God in the same category.

As I have been looking back at those moments of overwhelming emotion for my son, I have realized that the love I have for him is in a whole different league. There was more than emotion felt; there was a soul breaking in those moments, and it feels cheap to me to call that love… at least in the way our culture uses it. And what has been incredible to me has been the realization that this is the “love” that God has for me. I have always known that God loves me, but for the first time I experienced its true definition, which I have watered down without even knowing it, and in return, has affected the way I live for Him/love Him back.

It is this “love” that He has for His own Son, which He willingly put to death for me (Isa 53:10)! I can’t even begin to comprehend the cost that was made for my soul, and the deep, rich, Fatherly love that was behind it. When we think of God’s love for us as the watered down version our culture defines it as, then you get a very diluted response to that love. But when we realize the degree that we are loved, and the magnitude of it, we become the men and women we were created to be! Our response is nothing short of loving the Lord God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Lord, thank you for the tiny glimpse of what your love looks like toward your children!

Romans 8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.