Contributor: Annie
Scriptures Luke 15:11-32 Romans 8:15 Galatians 3:29 - 4:4-7 1 John 3:1 Song of Solomon 1:15, 4:1
Do you truly believe that the God who made the mountains, the oceans, the whole universe, who paints the sunsets and glorious skyscapes every single day, looked at His creation and decided that the world needed YOU? That there was something missing from His creation, and that something was YOU?
You may ask why should He do this?
Because He wants a relationship with you.
It is God’s earnest desire that we see Him for truly who He is, not our mind’s view of our Father God based on authority or father figures here on earth. Our Father God chose out of immeasurable love to create me, you, the unique beings that we are.
It is plausible that theologically God has to love us, but out of His tenderness, His compassion and His delight in us, He actually likes us. It is not a duty that God grudgingly does, He doesn’t just put up with us. To like someone means you enjoy being in their company; that you laugh at the same things, that you weep at the same things. It means that you have shared memories, you make time to keep in touch, because you like each other.
The realisation that God likes me completely overwhelms me and has changed my concept of what my relationship with Him is all about. Yes, we are loved beyond human understanding, but we are also liked, appreciated, valued, treasured by our Father.
The author of “The Shack” has been both admired and derided, even declared heretical, for his portrayal of God. Putting all our opinions aside, his concept of the delight and joy that is the relationship that the one Being who is God, has within the three Persons that He is, is beautiful beyond anything we can imagine. This relationship is a never-ending circle of intense love and deep liking of each other. A relationship characterised by respect for each other, delight in each other and desire to bring each other ceaseless joy.
And, believe it or not, this is how God delights in us. As we find new treasures in His Kingdom, He joins in our joy, in our excitement. As He provides new banquets for us each and every day, He loves to see us relishing what He has prepared for us to feed upon. It fills Him with such joy, and He has created us to join with Him in this joy, interacting with Him, going out of our way to return this favour. Finding ways that we can bring Him joy, not out of duty or religious observance, but out of the overflow of love that He has for us.
In Romans 8, Paul tells us 15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father” We need to cry out to our Abba, knowing Him as just that, our tender hearted, compassionate, extravagantly and audaciously loving Daddy, who is beyond any doubt also our omnipotent, omniscient strong Tower and Refuge.
God’s gaze never wavers, His eye is always upon us, alert, unflinching. All because He delights in us, He rejoices over us with singing, He adores being with us. As His children, isn’t this a wonderful aspiration, that our gaze never wavers from Him? Our relationship with Him grows and deepens as we relinquish our inhibitions, as we accept the extravagance of His love for us and with awe-filled audacity love Him back just as extravagantly.
Prayer: Abba Father, may our eyes meet Yours, may our hearts yearn for You as You yearn for us, may we take Your Hand each day knowing You more and more as our Abba Father, as we walk through eternity with You.