Embracing God’s full love can be difficult at times. At times, I find myself not being able to fathom the limitlessness of His love.
At the beginning of college, I went through a phase where I simply could not comprehend how much He loves me. Think about it: The Creator of the universe, the all-knowing God, the intelligent Creator of all everything we see around us loves us more than we can fathom, and He loves us even knowing our sinful nature.
I could not grasp the concept of God loving me the same every single day and accepting my imperfections. I struggled with this thought; I strived to be perfect and not sin; I felt guilt when I couldn’t be perfect. I experienced guilt every single every day because I felt like I was continually disappointing Him.
How can God love me as much as He does when I naturally sin time and time again? Are all sins weighed equally? Is God constantly disappointed in me and my imperfections or is He happy that I’m aware of my inadequacies and trying to work on them?
These questions troubled me on a daily basis. They disturbed me until I realized a few important matters of fact:
God is all-knowing.
It is important to remember that we are all sinners. Whatever sins we’ve committed in the past, whatever sins we currently struggle with in our day-to-day lives, and whatever sins we are going to commit in the future – God already knows about them. He knows and He still loves us the same. However, our job is to ask Him for forgiveness every day, to not take His grace for granted, and to work to be a better person today than we were yesterday. That’s all we can do, and that’s all He expects from us.
He is not a controlling God.
We all know that God tells us not to sin; This is not because He is trying to control us, but because He knows the dangers that come with sin.
Once I looked at God as an actual father, everything changed for me. I realized that He is not just sitting in heaven pointing His finger at me and telling me what to do and what not to do. Rather, He is similar to my earthly father in the sense that if He sees that something is going to put me in danger, then He is going to try everything in His power to keep me from that danger. Thus, God is doing this because of His limitless love for us.
The song “Good Good Father” by Big Daddy Weave helped me to view God as a real life father-figure. I would highly suggest checking out this song!
God’s love for us is revealed through the cross.
As crazy as it sounds, I didn’t really think about God and Jesus as one until last year. I knew about the Holy Trinity (that God is three consubstantial persons in one), however, this concept didn’t hit home for me until I heard the song “It’s Already Done” by Big Daddy Weave.
In the song, it says, “It’s already done, it’s already done. The love of the Father revealed in the Son. So open your heart up to His Kingdom come, and won’t you receive what He’s already done.”
One day, when I was listening to this song while getting ready for practice, the verse “the love of the Father revealed in the Son” really struck a cord in my heart. In that moment, I realized that God sent Himself down in human form to die for our sins because that’s the extent in which He loves us. Think about it, the Creator of this enormous universe died for lowly sinners like us. He didn’t need to do it, but His love for us surpassed all else. So why not receive what He has already done for us?
