God Speaking

“In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling.”

(Exodus 15: 13)

When my children were young, we were given a beautiful children’s book entitled, Love You Forever. It became a favourite (even though we all cried every time we read it), but eventually over the years we lost track of it until my daughter had children of her own and bought me a brand new copy to read to my grandchildren.

The other day I was minding my little grandson and I was telling him I loved him to bits and then I corrected my self and told him his cousin had a new saying and told me she loved me up to the moon and back. He immediately chimed in to tell me that he loved me more and this was his version

“I love you up to heaven and back!”

Later I was thinking about what he had said and realised that of course the Heavenly Father was the source of perfect love and just like the title of the little book, he has promised to love us forever

“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; and his love endures forever.” (1 Chronicles 16: 34)

The Psalmist who wrote Psalm 118 ended the first 4 verses with the same phrase emphasising the importance of remembering that God will love us for all time. No other love can match his for his love endures forever;

“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his love endures forever.” (Psalm 118: 1)

In this age where every appliance, every piece of new technology every new piece of machinery has a short life span it is hard for us humans to understand what endure forever means. Even though lovers promise in that first rush of attraction that they will love each other forever, we know, sadly that is not always the case.

When we fall short of our own expectations, we often think that God will give up on us too and withdraw his love from us, but no, his love continues through all our ups and downs. We must be careful not to shut him out of our lives when we are ashamed of ourselves as we will miss out on feeling that beautiful, forgiving love he has for us.

The more we appreciate His enduring love the more we become more loving to those around us as God’s love begins to fill our lives.

In this sweet little book, I mentioned, there is a beautiful picture of a mother calming her little baby son by rocking him and singing a lovely song telling him how much she loves him. Even though we are not babies, in the book of Zephaniah, the same image is portrayed of God as a parent calming us down with his love and singing to us. I love this image and in some of my worst moments I go back and read this verse and it comforts me.

“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3: 17)