God’s Constant Love

‘How precious is your unfailing love, O God!
All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings.
You feed them from the abundance of your own house,
letting them drink from your river of delights’.
(Psalm 36:7-8 New Living Translation)

Have you ever played the game ‘effeuiller la marguerite’?

It’s a game of French origin that basically means “to rip off the daisy’s leaves”.

You may know it better as ‘(s)he loves me, (s)he loves me not’.

It’s where one person seeks to determine whether the object of their affection returns that affection or not.

A person playing the game alternately speaks the phrases “(S)he loves me,” and “(S)he loves me not,” while picking one petal off a flower, usually a common daisy, for each phrase. The phrase they speak on picking off the last petal supposedly represents the truth between the object of their affection loving them or not.

Some people play this game with God:

“I’ve been good today; I’ve prayed, completed some Bible study, helped some people – He loves me.”

“I’ve had a bad day; skipped prayer and Bible study, lost my temper in the supermarket – He loves me not.”

“Everything is going well in my life; I have a good job, a loving family, good health – He loves me.”

“Things are really bad at the moment; I’m unemployed, estranged from my family and have health problems – He loves me not.”

When we take this approach with God we can never be sure of His love. We will always be asking ourselves the question, “Have I done enough today to warrant God’s love”? We will always be thinking that God blesses me when he loves me and curses me when He loves me not.

But God is not fickle, and neither is His love. In fact ‘God is love.’ (1 John 4:8) This is who He is in His essential being; He cannot act towards us in any other way and still be true to Himself.

God’s love is constant. There is nothing you can do to make Him love you any more or any less. He loves you with all that He is.

There is a great line in the film Unconditional: “What if God’s love is like the sun – constant and unchanging? What if you woke up one day and realised nothing can take that away?”

There is nothing more powerful than to know that God’s love is constant and unchanging.

To realise that nothing can take that away is so affirming and liberating.

God’s wants you to realise that His love is so wide you can’t get round it, so long you can’t exhaust it or get away from it, so high you can’t get over it and so deep you can’t get under it or fathom its depths. (C.f. Ephesians 3:18)

Now you can’t get a greater love than that!

Have a good week basking in the love of God,

Pastor Barry