I’ve never been much of a tenderhearted person. Compassion and empathy don’t come easily to me. When I take spiritual gifts tests, the gift of Mercy is always one of my lowest scores. I’ve struggled to emotionally bond with people, which has especially plagued me in my relationships with my kids. That motherly affection and nurturing love that’s supposed to be so natural for moms? It didn’t come naturally to me. I know I love my kids, but I don’t often FEEL affectionate towards them. I struggle to enjoy spending time with them and taking an interest in what they like to do (Yes, I’m aware of how terrible that sounds- I’m aggressively working on it!).
I always thought of God’s love for His children in much the same way. Of course we know God loves us. We are taught this from the time we are babies. Who hasn’t heard the phrase “Jesus loves you”? But what kind of love are we describing? I always envisioned God reluctantly tolerating us because He had to once we put our faith in Christ. I imagined God looking down at us and holding His nose, loving us in some distant, detached way, but not wanting to get too close. I thought of God as only loving us because He loves His Son and has applied His righteousness to us for our justification, not because we have any kind of value in and of ourselves. He loves us, but must still be overwhelmingly disappointed in us. He loves us, but must be constantly annoyed and irritated. He loves us, but it’s a cool, forced kind of love.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been discovering a truth that I have somehow never really grasped even as a Christian of over 30 years. God’s love is not stingy. He’s not holding back. He’s not begrudgingly forgiving us while casting distasteful glances our way, wanting to punish us for our sin but unable to do so once we followed Christ. My own admittedly pathetic version of “love” and my sinful tendency to keep people at arm’s length caused me to create a God in my own image who bears little resemblance to the God of the Bible.
I had it completely backwards.
My goal moving forward is not to post gigantic essays that take forever to read, but to break them up into smaller posts which are hopefully more doable. Be on the lookout for Part 2 on this topic!
Krista Harmuth 