Understanding the Love of God

Living in a fallen world where we are constantly battling our selfishness, quite often it is hard to understand God's love. Again and again I see good things happen to 'bad' people and bad things happen to 'good' people.

It wasn't until recently that I began to understand that no one is good, or at least not good enough to receive the love of God. We could never deserve it or work hard enough to attain it.

Yet, He gives it to us with open hands and offers it to anyone who is willing to take it. In the process of refining us with His love, God does whatever is necessary to show us that only with Him we can be whole.

For a large majority of my life, I thought that God allowed certain trials to come into our lives to test our faith (to see if we could handle it while still serving him).
However, C.S. Lewis has introduced me to another kind of God in his book A Grief Observed.

He goes on to say: "God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down."

God has knocked down my temple of cards before, and from time to time I go back to my old ways and try so hard to make it on my own. As if I could think hard enough or just try to be good enough. What a relief it is to know that I cannot do it on my own because I was not designed to be my own god.

Praise God for his love! For He gives it to us knowing that we could never give it back to Him with its full magnitude and power.