God Loves Us Because of His Knowledge About Us, Not In Spite of It

Jen and I were talking the other day and through our conversation God really spoke healing truth to our hearts. We were recalling the life-stories (without going into the specifics) we have been listening to in our Thrive groups. What we noticed is that when we take the time to hear and experience people’s stories we tend to feel compassion, understanding and grace towards them. And here’s the thing…we are only hearing and seeing a small tip of their life-story — there is soooo much more to them and their story then we could ever know or experience. And yet even with hearing just the “tip” of their story, empathy and grace ensue. How much more if we lived and heard and experienced and fully knew their entire story!

And here was the healing truth: God loves us because he knows everything about us. I used to believe that God knew everything about me (which God does) and loved me none-the-less, almost like God loved me in spite of all the stuff he knew about me. But as I look at how much compassion, understanding and grace I feel towards people when only knowing a little about their story, how much more so God knowing everything about their story! That God’s knowledge of us feeds God’s compassion, not wrath. After all, and this makes tons of sense now, “The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.”

The more I hear people’s stories the less I feel inclined to judge them, but love them. I pray that this will go deeper in me so the next time I feel the desire to judge I will move towards love knowing that if I knew their story, chances are, I would feel a huge sense of compassion, grace, and love towards them.

May I love others in faith of that truth.

August 13, 2008 | Categories: blessing, God, love, theology | Tags: Compassion, Creation, freedom, God, grace, Human, Humanity, Jesus, Judging, Knowledge, love, Stories, truth | 4 Comments