One of my biggest struggles and I don’t think I’m alone in this is experiencing and believing God’s love for me.

And yet…

One of the strongest and clearest messages throughout the Bible is God’s love for us. We are reminded that God doesn’t forget us (even though many of us feel forgotten), that God is close to us (also though He often feels far away), and that not only has He created us in His image but He knows us, and that doesn’t scare Him away (although we always fear that the moment someone truly knows us, they’ll bolt).

And yet, many of us still struggle to believe God loves us.

We believe God loves the world. We believe that through Jesus, God will redeem and restore the world, but we have a hard time placing ourselves in that.

So we run, we hide, we put up fronts, wear masks, beat ourselves up for past mistakes, try to earn God’s love, try to prove ourselves worth God’s love, and all the while God’s love sits there.

Philip Yancey, in his book Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? shares this story: David Ford, a professor at Cambridge, asked a Catholic priest the most common problem he encountered in twenty years of hearing confession. With no hesitation, the priest replied, “God.” Very few parishioners he meets in confession behave as if God is a God of love, forgiveness, gentleness, and compassion. They see God as someone to cower before, not as someone like Jesus, worthy of our trust. Ford comments, “This is perhaps the hardest truth of any to grasp. Do we wake up every morning amazed that we are loved by God?… Do we allow our day to be shaped by God’s desire to relate to us?”

The problem for many of us is that we read verses about God’s love for the world and us (John 3:16), that Jesus loves us (John 15:9), that God predestined us in love (Ephesians 1:4 – 5), that God sings over us (Zephaniah 3:17), that God loved us first (1 John 4:19), that God draws us to himself (John 6:44). We read Paul saying over 160 times that as a follower of Jesus, we are “in Christ,” and yet we live each day as if God is disappointed in us, indifferent towards us, mildly happy with us or “likes” us.

What if, and I say what if not because it isn’t right but because we wonder if it is.

But what if, all those verses listed above, are about you and God’s love for you?

They are.

In Colossians 3:12, Paul tells us that followers of Jesus are chosen, holy ones, dearly loved.

One of the things all of us long for is to be chosen, to be wanted, to be pursued. 

Many of us have nightmares from the playground of being chosen last for the team. Anything but the last one picked.

Not being asked to prom or the banquet, not being chosen for a scholarship, grant, or job.

Levi Lusko said God didn’t get stuck with you; He chose you.

Holy ones carry the idea that we are set apart, different. For something to be set apart, there is care with that person or thing. To be set apart carries the idea that there is a specific purpose for us, a plan, that’s why it is set apart.

Dearly loved is exactly what it sounds like. Many of us, though read that and wonder. You are dearly loved. Not just loved, dearly loved.

This is the basis for the Christian life, God’s love for you. Not what you do, not what you can do, but what God has done for you.

The most important thing about you is that God loves you.

David Benner said, “Some Christians base their identity on being a sinner. I think they have it wrong – or only half right. You are not simply a sinner; you are a deeply loved sinner. And there is all the difference in the world between the two.”

One of the questions I wrestle with personally or talk with others about is around the question: Am I really growing? Am I changing? Am I on the right path? If we don’t know or aren’t careful, we’ll give up before we should.

It can feel like you are, but then you look at your life and wonder if you are.

It’s like going to the gym, eating healthy, but the scale stays the same, and you don’t see many changes day to day, but over a more extended period, you begin to see it.

If you don’t stay focused on this longer-term picture, it can feel deflating, and you give up.

But how do you know if you’re on the right track?

Recently, I started a new sermon series on the power of your mind when it comes to change. Too often, we focus on changing behaviors, but the reality is our brain is incredibly powerful when it comes to change.

But in that series, I shared from Colossians 1, four ways to know you are on the right path of growth:

1. You can see it. This might seem obvious, but it isn’t always. The Bible calls this fruit, bearing fruit, the evidence of change. Often, we can see fruit in other people but struggle to see it in ourselves.

The test of faith and change is whether or not it makes any difference in how we live and treat others.

Have we changed? Can you see that your life is different, even in small ways?

For most of us, we want the result now, and that is when we’ll celebrate. We’ll mark when our marriage is fixed, or we hit that goal we were after. But to get to that place, we have to celebrate the small steps along the way, the 1% changes we experience and walk through daily.

2. Growing in knowledge of God. Knowledge is not just the ability to retain information or know something. Everyone in America knows how to lose weight: eat less, move more. Growing in knowledge is the ability to apply what you know.

In most places in the New Testament, faith is discussed in terms of belief in Jesus and his life, death, and resurrection.

In Colossians, faith is not just a belief in Jesus but also a faith in the power of God.

N.T. Wright said, To believe that God raised Jesus from the dead is to believe in the God who raises the dead. Such faith not merely assents to a fact about Jesus; it recognizes a truth about God.

Change comes from placing our hope in the God who has the power to raise Jesus from the dead.

3. Being strengthened with God’s power for endurance and patience. We need perseverance and patience when it comes to change because God doesn’t tell us he will take us out of difficult situations or steps, only that he will be with us. We will not be alone.

Hope in the power of God means that we have freedom from bitterness, anger, resentment, self-pity, and hopelessness.

Why? Because sometimes change will take us through our greatest fears.

What if the road that will take you where you need to go is filled with potholes, steps backward and will feel like an uphill climb both ways?

The reality of change that we rarely like to admit or talk about is that it almost always gets harder before it gets easier; it goes down before it goes up. I remember when I weighed 300 pounds and wanted to lose weight. At first, I cut out soda and lost weight. Like 10 pounds in a couple of weeks immediately. Then I put some on. Then it got harder because cutting out soda is one thing, changing portion sizes, not snacking, not having two helpings, that’s harder. Then I had to confront, why was I overweight? What did I look to food for? We can find reasons to make a change and keep it for an hour, for a day. It is when it becomes days, weeks and months that the change gets harder.

Any change will involve endurance and patience. It will not happen as quickly as we like or even the way we expected it to. While different, endurance and patience both carry this idea of not giving up, pushing forward.

You see this when a couple goes in for counseling. They want to see some change right now. But the reality is that they spent years living and interacting in unhealthy ways. That doesn’t switch overnight. Their minds and hearts towards their spouse think one way, and they are having to rewire their brains and work from new patterns of thinking.

4. Gratitude. This one is the most surprising. Gratitude matters because gratitude is a choice you make. It is not a feeling as much as a decision that a feeling follows.

We tell our kids to say thank you. Why? We are helping them to choose gratitude.

Gratitude is a choice. It is a choice to embrace all of life, the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, all of it as a gift.

Gratitude in the small changes you see in your life and how things are changing and moving forward.

Gratitude helps us to see life in new ways and rewire our hearts and minds. The writers of Scripture knew this. Science knows this. It’s time we apply this simple tool.

How does that work?

Just by it writing down, telling a friend, acknowledging the progress you have made.

Storms happen to all of us.

Storms surprise us; storms sideswipe us in life.

Many times, we fall onto our couch and think, “I did not see that coming.”

The funny thing about storms though is that you can see them coming in someone else’s life better than you see them in your life.

Have you ever had someone tell you they didn’t see something coming and you thought, “How could you miss it?” We all saw your marriage going that way, we told you. We saw that financial decision is a poor one a mile away.

A storm is when you feel helpless. Life feels chaotic; you have this “I did not see that coming” feeling afterward.

Some storms are out of our control, things like getting laid off, when you were abused or when you can’t have a baby. When cancer comes back, when your kids walk away from their faith, you have a miscarriage, or you are depressed and can’t see a way forward.

But some storms, we cause. How you respond to things in your life. Who you let into your life and who you allow influencing your life.

Your marriage is another area we have some control over. We don’t want to admit it, but the choices we made earlier in life had a more significant effect on our marriage than we expected. We didn’t expect that sleeping around in our 20’s to affect us in our 30’s. Who knew those financial decisions would still be felt ten years later.

Or the resentment and bitterness you carry around from past relationships and hurts.

Regardless of the storm or the cause, many of us, when we get stuck in a storm in life wonder where God is.

There is a fascinating passage in Mark 6 that shows us something important about God and storms.

Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After he said good-bye to them, he went away to the mountain to pray. Well into the night, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he was alone on the land. He saw them straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Very early in the morning he came toward them walking on the sea and wanted to pass by them. When they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke with them and said, “Have courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Then he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. They were completely astounded, because they had not understood about the loaves. Instead, their hearts were hardened.

What is fascinating to me is that Jesus intended to pass by them. He didn’t plan on stopping.

But isn’t Jesus supposed to save them? To pull them from the storm? Stop it? Bring relief?

Sometimes Jesus stops the storm. Sometimes he pulls us from it and brings relief. And sometimes he passes by.

This might seem like Jesus is leaving them (or us), but that is far from it.

Dave Furman in his book Kiss the Wave: Embracing God in Your Trials said, The better question isn’t whether or not Jesus wanted to help his disciples, of course, he did, but the question is, how did he want to help them.

In 1 Kings, when God showed himself to Elijah, He did so by passing by him.

In the book of Exodus, God showed Moses his power and presence by passing by him.

Jesus is showing them and us he is God by passing by them.

Here’s how I’ve seen this play out in my life: when someone else gets my answered prayer. Has that ever happened to you? You pray for your marriage, but it seems like other people’s marriage improves. You pray for your finances and others get blessed. Same as you pray for your kids and others seem to get ahead. You pray for your career and a co-worker gets promoted and gets the raise.

God is more visibly at work in someone else’s life. God has more visibly blessed them with a comfortable life compared to our lives.

Sometimes God will move in life near us to show us He can. Not to taunt us or diminish our faith, but to strengthen it.

In her book, It’s Not Supposed to be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength when Disappointments Leave You Shattered, Lysa Terkeurst shares this prayer and if you find yourself in a storm and finding it difficult to trust God and cling to him, I pray this prayer helps you:

Oh, dear God, help me trust You beyond what my physical eyes can see. As the winds of all that’s uncontrollable whip around me and thrash against me, I need something to ground me. Steady me. Hold me together when circumstances are falling apart. I want to trust you beyond what my eyes can see. Amen.

What problem are you facing right now that seems impossible? Insurmountable?

Is it something to do with your job? Will, you have to fire someone? Are you struggling to find a job that you love? Is it impossible to work with the people you work with?

What about at home? Often, it feels like we are the only ones who care about the issues in our house. Your spouse is unresponsive or left, your kids have checked out and are more interested in friends or electronics.

We feel alone.

This happens spiritually as well.

We pray and ask God to move, but it seems like God was more at work in our past or the lives of others than He is in our present life.

This letdown is hard to handle because it leaves us feeling alone and abandoned. It makes our heads and hearts spin.

And while we know that God is all powerful and can do whatever He wants, we stare at mountains that seem impossible to face.

Monday morning feels like an arduous task, so we stay in bed. Fighting for our marriage feels impossible. Our kids, finances, and health issues all feel like they will beat us out instead of us winning the war.

God Will Fight For You

What is hard for us to fathom in the barren place of the wilderness is that God is fighting for us. God is pursuing us.

But He is.

The story of Christmas and the story of Scripture is God’s relentless pursuit of us.

God could’ve left us, He could’ve left you, but He didn’t.

God wants to meet you.

But and this is often why we are in the wilderness, “What we want and what God has promised are not always the same.”

We experience the wilderness of faith when all the things God has done for us are in the past, and it seems like he isn’t moving now.

We struggle to remember that God is at work even when nothing seems to be happening in our lives or worlds.

Community

When we are lonely and sad, the last thing we want is a community.

When we feel depressed, the last thing we want is to sit with a counselor and talk about it.

The very thing that we don’t want to do is the thing we need to do. 

Community, friends, counselors are used by God to pull us out of the dark places to live in the light.

They are able to help us see our blindspots and help to get us “out of the one-way conversation in our heads.”

When it comes to figuring out God’s will, we often make it incredibly difficult to figure out. We talk about it in mystical ways, heightening the sense that only a few find it. We wonder, does God have a specific will for my life? What if I miss it?

This happens with marriage; is there the one for me and what if I marry the wrong one?

If there’s an open door, is that God’s will? If it’s a closed door, is that God way of saying no?

We also look at people in the Bible, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Paul and see people that God used in incredible ways, but also people that God spoke to audibly and laid out his will. We see Noah getting the measurements of the ark. Abraham and Moses are told where to go. Does God still do that?

For us, we have something they didn’t have. God’s will written out in the form of God’s word. We have God’s inspired, authoritative word. Over 31,000 words that God has given to us and preserved to show us how life is to be lived.

This means a few things. I don’t think we will find a laid out plan for every aspect of our life. God will not give us all the details. What he does do is give us a framework in which to live by and make decisions.

Most people when they make decisions set out the pros and cons of a choice and then choose the way that has the most pros or the least annoying or uncomfortable cons. What if we thought about it differently? What if we looked at the framework God has given us in Scripture and asked, “Will this choice get me to where God wants me or will it hinder me?” Sometimes, the choice with the most cons will get us there.

Here are a few clues to the framework:

• Marriage: God has told us in Ephesians 5 and Genesis 1 – 2 that there are specific roles for marriage. Men are to lead their wives and families lovingly. They are to pastor them. They are to lay their lives down as Jesus did. They are to exhibit servant leadership. God has given them responsibility and accountability for their families. Wives are to respond to their husband’s leadership and submit to them. They are to be their partners in life, their helpers, giving pushback when needed. This doesn’t mean a wife is a robot or a doormat. The Holy Spirit is called “the helper” so I don’t think this is a negative thing as we speak of it.
• Money: Malachi 3 and 2 Corinthians 8 – 9 tells us to steward the money and possessions God entrusts to us well. We are to honor God by giving back to him a portion of what he has entrusted to us. That portion is to be sacrificial, generous, worshipful and proportional. This means we need to set this aside first and then live within the means of what is left.
• Work: We are to work and rest. We are to live in rhythm. If we are married, 1 Timothy 5 says that a man is responsible for providing for his family, that if he doesn’t, he is worse than an unbeliever. This means we need to live within the means of what we make. Our identity is not found in our work, but our work is one way we glorify God and show what He is like through our faithful, hard work.
• Mission: Matthew 28, Acts 1 and scores of other places that we are to live on mission. That the gospel should change us in such a way that we live our lives with the purpose of moving the gospel forward in the world in which we live. That we should live lives that are different. If you live out the passages mentioned above, do you think your life will look different from those around you?

I could go on and on. My point is that God has laid out what it means to be a follower of his, what it means to live in the freedom of the gospel, what a man, woman, dad, mom, husband, wife, child, boss, employee. What it means to date, to work, to pray, to eat, to sleep.

I believe that if we lived out what Scripture calls us to, we would find God’s will for our lives more easily and clearly.