He loves me. He loves me not.

He loves me. He loves me not.

The chant continues as one-by-one the daisy petals are plucked from the flower and dropped to the ground. At game's end the last petal tells all; whether or not the person of their desire also cares for them in return.

Of course no one takes it seriously, and if children don't get the answer they desire they take another daisy and start the process again. It doesn't take long even for them to realize that flowers just weren't designed to tell romantic fortunes. Why should they link their heart's desires to the fickleness of chance?

Why indeed! But it is a lesson far easier learned in romance than in more spiritual pursuits. For long after we've put away our daisies, many of us continue to play the game with God. This time we don't pluck flower petals, but probe through our circumstances trying to figure exactly how God feels about us.

I got a raise. He loves me.

I didn't get the promotion I wanted, or I lost my job altogether. He loves me not!

Something in the Bible inspired me today. He loves me!

My child is seriously ill. He loves me not!

I gave money to someone in need. He loves me!

I let my anger get the best of me. He loves me not!

Something I prayed for actually happened. He loves me!

I stretched to truth to get me out of a tight spot. He loves me not!

A friend calls from out of the blue and encourages me. He loves me!

My car needs a new transmission. He loves me not!

 

A Perilous Tightrope

I have played that game most of my life, trying to sort out in any given moment how God might feel about me personally. I grew up learning that he is a God of love, and for the most part I believed it to be true.

In good times, nothing is easier to believe. In days when my family was healthy and our relationships a joy; when my ministry thrived and both income and opportunity were increasing; when we had plenty of time to enjoy our friends and were not burdened down with need; who wouldn't be certain of God's love?

But I knew that to be more illusion than reality when those times of bliss were interrupted with more troublesome events…

…like a childhood condition that provided no end of embarrassment.

…or the day one of my friends in high school died of a brain tumor even as we prayed earnestly for his healing.

…or when I wasn't selected for a job I wanted in college because someone had lied about me.

…or the night my house was robbed.

…or when I was severely burned in a kitchen accident.

…or when I watched my father-in-law or my brother, both stricken down with debilitating illnesses even though they sought God earnestly for healing.

…or when colleagues in ministry lied to me and spread false stories about me to win the support of others.

…or when I didn't know where my next paycheck would come from.

…or when I saw my wife crushed by circumstances no one should have to endure, and couldn't get God to change them no mater how hard I tired.

…or when new doors of opportunity that appeared certain would suddenly slam shut like a wind-blown door.

Then I wondered how God really felt about me. I couldn't understand how a God who loved me would either allow such things into my life or wouldn't fix them immediately so that I or people I loved wouldn't have to endure such pain.

He loves me not! Or so I thought on most days. My disappointment at God could easily turn two directions. Often in my pain and frustration, when I felt like I had done enough to deserve better, I would rail at God like the Job of old, accusing him of being unfair and unloving. In more honest moments, however I was well-aware of the temptations and failures that could exclude me from his aid. I would come out of those times committed to trying harder to live the life I thought would merit his love.

I lived for 34 years as a believer on this perilous tightrope. Even when there was no crisis hanging over my head, I was always wary of the next one God might drop on me at any second if I couldn't keep myself good enough. Even though I could easily talk about him as a loving Father, it was more to describe God as I wanted him to be, rather than the one I knew him to be. In some ways I had become like the schizophrenic child of an abusive father, never certain what God I'd meet on any given day&emdash;the one who wants to scoop you up in his arms with laughter, or the one who would ignore me or punish me you for reasons I could never understand.

Only in the last five years have I come to discover that my methods of discerning God's love were as flawed as pulling petals from a daisy. I haven't been the same since.

 

Convincing Evidence

What about you?

Have you ever felt tossed back and forth sometimes certain, must mostly uncertain about how the creator of the universe feels about you, especially when circumstances overwhelm you?

Or perhaps you've never even known how much God loves you. In a Bible study recently I met a forty year old woman who was active in her fellowship but admitted to a small group of us that she had never been able to know for certain that God loved her. She seemed to want to tell me more, but finally only asked me to pray for her.

As I did, asking God to reveal just how much he loved her, an image came to mind. I saw a figure I knew to be Jesus walking through a meadow hand in hand with a little girl about five years old. Somehow I knew this woman was that little girl. I prayed that he would help her discover a childlikeness of spirit that would allow her to skip through the meadows with him.

When I finished praying I looked up at her eyes that were brimming with tears. Did you say 'meadow'?" she asked.

I nodded, thinking it odd she had focused on that word.

Immediately she began to cry. As she was able to speak, she told me more of her story. "That's what I wasn't sure I wanted to tell you, she said. When I was five years old I was molested in a meadow by an older boy. Whenever I think about God, I think about that horrible event and I wonder why, if he loved me so much, he didn't stop that from happening."

She's not alone. Many people carry scars and disappointments that can appear to be convincing evidence that the God of love might not exist, or if he does, maintains a safe distance from them leaving them to the whim of other people's sins.

I don't have a stock answer for moments like that, as if any could be effective in the midst of such real pain and honest questions. I told her, that evidently God wanted her to know he had been there with her, and although he didn't act in the only way she could understand true love to act, that he loved her nonetheless. Though he had not prevent it, he wanted to walk her through that defiled meadow and redeem it in her life.

He wanted to give her a measure of joy in the face of the most traumatic event of her life, and turn what was supposed to destroy her into a stepping stone toward grace. I know that can sound almost trite in the face of such incredible pain, but the process has begun for her. It is my hope these words will encourage that process in you as well.

 

Perception Versus Reality

For truly God has never acted towards you in any way other than with a depth of love that almost defies human understanding. I know it doesn't look like it to you. I know how real your disappointment can be when he seems callused to your prayers and how that can shatter your trust in the Living God and his affection for you. I know how your awareness of your own sin can even seemingly justify God's indifference and beckon you to a dark whirlpool of self-loathing for which there seems to be no escape.

That's exactly what your troubles can do when we're playing the he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not-game, the evidence can look overwhelming. For reasons we shall see throughout these pages God does not often do the things we think his love would compel him to do for us. He often seems to stand by with indifference while we suffer. How often does he seem to disappoint our most noble expectations? But perception is not necessarily reality.

If our eyes only define God in our limited interpretation of our own circumstances, we will never discover who he really is.

However, he has provided a far better way, where our daisy-petal approach to Christianity can be swallowed up by the undeniable proof of his love for us on the cross of Calvary. That's the side of the cross that has all but been ignored in recent decades. We have not seen what really happened there between the Father and his Son that opens the door to his love so vast and so certain that it cannot challenged even by your darkest days.

Through that door that we can really know who God is and embrace the relationship with him that the deepest part of your heart has hungered to experience. That is where we'll begin, because it is only in the context of the relationship God desires with you that you can begin to discover the full glory of his love.

He does love you more deeply than you've ever been loved; and he has done so throughout your entire life. Once you discover how true that is, your troubles will never again drive you to question God's affection for you or whether you've done enough to merit it. Instead of fearing he has turned his back on you, you will be able to trust his love at the moments you need him most.

Then you'll finally know the joy of trusting him far more than your own efforts to try and please him. You'll know how to live free of the fear and shame that has held you captive from being who he really made you to be and that do far more to separate you from God than draw you closer to him. You will even see in the strangest ways how that love can flow out of you to touch a world starved for it.

Learning to trust him like that is not something any of us can resolve in an instant; but something we'll grow to discover for the whole of our lives. God knows how difficult it is for us to accept his love and will teach you with more patience than you've ever known. Through every circumstance and in the most surprising ways, he will make his love known to you in ways you can understand.

So perhaps its time to toss your daisies aside and discover that it is not the fear of losing God's love that will keep you on his path, but the simple joy of living in it every day.

On the day you discover that, you will truly begin to live!

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For your personal journey--

How often do you find yourself doubting God's love for you? When do you find you question it the most often? How certain are you that God loves you as deeply as he does anyone else in the world? When difficulties arise how often do you find yourself doubting God's love for you, or trying to be more righteous so he'll like you more? Ask God to show you just how much

 

Small Group Discussion:

• Share an experience you went through in which you really doubted if God cared about you and the situation you were in.
• How do you feel about it now? If you're still unsure, what might you ask God to do to change your perception of that event.
• If you look back now and know that God loved you even if you didn't recognize it at the time, what did you learn in the process?
• How can we encourage one another to be certain of God's love instead of doubtful.

 

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