The day my first child was born was just over 8 years ago. Jan 11, 2003. We had wanted a child right away, but it still took 7 months to get pregnant. Then another 9 months of waiting and waiting and waiting to meet her. Then her due date came, and went. Then a week. Then another week. Finally the doctor had waited enough and we went to the hospital for a “scheduled induction.” 36 hours of labor later Rayne was born. All those months of praying, all those months of waiting, had finally come to fuition, and here was our daughter.
I loved her with a love I had not known before. It was an intense love that took me by surprise.
There was another thing that took me by surprise. The fear on the doctor’s faces. I didn’t notice it at first, but when I heard the nurse say to my little baby, “breathe little one, breathe” I knew something was not going as expected. Her first APGAR score was 2, which is really close to 0, which I didn’t know at the time, but that’s pretty close to “not alive.” She finally did start breathing, and is a vivacious normal healthy girl, despite having not breathed for approximately the first 4 minutes of her life.
If that is the kind of intense love that I, a frail human, a naïve young man, a brand new father could feel, how much more intense is God’s love towards you. The creator of the universe. The creator of you. He day-dreamed about the day he would get to form you in your mothers womb. He did a fist-pump when you were born.
I grew up hearing people and preachers say those sorts of things and I would often wonder why? The person would respond “because God loves you” But you see, my little child engineering mind was not satisfied with that answer. “God Love’s You”, that’s like his job description. Mom loves you. God loves you. Two things that don’t change. Right. Got it.
What I didn’t know until rather recently, was that God likes me and he wants to spend time with me. God, the creator of little puny me, he likes me? He wants to hang out with me?
Think back to the day you got saved. On that day, the angels in heaven rejoiced and Jesus threw a party. We know that God liked us that day. Now, think about where you were the day before you were saved. Did God like you the day before you were saved? What about the day before that? Think about your worst moment. The bottom of the pit. Did God like you? The answer resounds through scripture and is summarized “While we were still sinners Christ died for us.”
I used to act and strive so hard to earn God’s favor. Knowing that God likes me … that he liked me even when I was doing things that broke his heart … I can rest inside. I don’t have to earn his favor now. I can trust him. He’s not an angry God, a mad dad just waiting to squish me. If he was waiting for that, he’s had plenty of opportunities already. God is a glad dad and he can’t resist spoiling me. He gives me “the desires of my heart.”
Because I know God likes me and He likes spoiling me I now know that I can trust him with everything. I know that I don’t know what is best for me. But I trust the God who wrote the script for my life, that He knows what is best for me. Because I know He likes me, I know I can trust Him with my wife, with my kids, with my very life.
I remember driving home one day, soon after learning this. I was praying in my car as I was pulling into my neighborhood. I prayed, “okay God, I trust you, give me your best shot.” There was no giant thumb from heaven, no crazy near miss on the road. But I did feel the pleasure of God as he gave me his biggest smile.
God doesn’t want our striving, he doesn’t want our panicked good works. He wants our trust. He’s the one that showed how much He loved us, even liked us, by dying for us while we were still spitting in His face. All of history is a story of God showing us that he is a trustworthy God and asking us, with His arms outstretched, do you trust me?
And when we say “yes”, when we really say “yes”, He gives us His biggest grin, holds out His hands and bids us come walk on water with Him.
