For Love

We talk about what it means to trust God, how it can't be just some blanket statement that isn't attached to a deeper, relational meaning. In other words, we have to know what we're trusting God for, so that we can focus our hearts on what we know about His specific goodness in that particular area. And this still gets us really close to a place where details matter, more or less. 

But as I contemplated this question this week, even after rounding it out and filling it in with the specific thing I thought I was trusting God for, it became clear to me that I wasn't even trusting God for what I thought I was trusting God for. 

At the end of the day, I'm trusting God for just one thing: 

I'm trusting Him to love me. 

I'm trusting Him that, no matter the circumstances, He loves me. I'm trusting Him that, no matter what path I choose, He loves me. I'm trusting Him that, no matter what happens next, He loves me. I'm trusting Him that, if it turns out twenty years from now that I made the wrong choice, He loves me. I'm trusting not only that He loves me, but I'm trusting that He will actively love me in ways that I can't deny, in ways that will make sense to my heart, in ways that I can't even fathom at the moment in which I am choosing to trust Him to love me.

And my life is littered with examples of God loving me. Through every circumstance. Through every fear. Through every challenge. Through every victory. Through every doubt. Through every hope. Through every assurance. Through every mountain. Through every valley. 

I don't need to know any more specifics about anything when I'm trusting God to love me because no matter what happens next, I have a lifetime of God loving me to lean back on. To know. And to trust. 

I get that this probably sounds cheesy to some. Like a cop-out to others. But I'm not talking about a platitude. I'm not talking about a "Jesus loves me, this I know" kind of intellectual understanding of the love of God. I'm talking about an enfleshed, real-life, down-to-earth, brightest-and-darkest-moments kind of love. I'm talking about a love that has shown up so powerfully in my life that I could smell it. That I could taste it. That I could put my fingers on it and actually feel it. 

I'm talking about a love that has never let me down, even when it felt like things were slipping away. I'm talking about a love that has always worked good for my life, even when everything felt bad. I'm talking about a love that has swept in and answered every question with a deep, satisfying knowing at the moment when I was most sure that an answer was never coming. 

I'm talking about a love that has called me to all of the places that I now inhabit...and that has called me out of those that, by grace, I was able to leave behind. I'm talking about a love that has wrapped me in its warm embrace when I lay shivering on the floor, curled up into a mass of human brokenness and trauma. I'm talking about a love that has stood me up tall when my shoulders have slumped, so tall that I've gone home to measure myself because I'm certain I have grown at least two inches. 

I'm talking about a love I have lived because it's a love that lives in my life. 

And I'm trusting God for that. 

The Bible may have told me so, but this I know because God has proven it to be true over and over and over again: Jesus loves me. 

Because God is love.