Does God Really Love Me?

When I wake up in the middle of the night I pray. Over the years, I’ve trained myself to recite, mutter, meditate on portions of Scripture I’ve memorized, or song lyrics locked in my mind that I pray back to God, until I fall back to sleep.

Recently, God’s shown me something through this midnight time: “Nancy, you express your love for me so much. And I love it! I love your heart and your passion for me. And, I. Love. You.”

If you whip past this, you’ll miss it like I so easily can. 

“I know that all love originates with you, Lord,” I’ll tell Him, as if I’m in an oral quiz, or, if I’m more open, a curious child.

“No. You often start with your love for me, dear one.” I sense Him gently push back.

Hmmm…

And a sign that I may not quite have grasped the love of God as deeply as I thought is that I often try so hard to make sure, by what I say and how I say it (often with pleading or passion and fervor—not bad things of course, but notable when dialoguing with God about it), and by the activity in my life.

“Am I needing to prove my love to you, Lord? Look, look at me. Look how much I love you, Lord!”

The apostle John wrote, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us…”(1 John 4:10).

I’ve begun deliberately zeroing in on God’s love for me. I am loved. You are loved. “Not that [I] loved you, God, but that you loved me….”

It blows me away.

And I confess: I struggle to start there. With God. (How I want it to start with me. And how I want to try so hard to prove and dazzle and…) Maybe my resistance is because I don’t actually want to confront my deepest fear: does God really, really love me?

This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us…