This summer I will be visiting my wife's family in Poland. My parents in law live opposite what was once a very large Russian military base. A small part of the base is still used by the Polish army, but the majority of it now lies abandoned. On one occasion two years ago I decided to take my son, who was two at the time, on a walk through the old military base. As we were walking together I felt an incredible sense of love and joy as I chatted to my son, delighting in his presence, and seeing the world through his eyes. In that special moment, I became aware of what I would describe as God speaking to me, saying "the love, and joy that you feel when you look at your son, is how I feel towards you, you don't have to earn my love, I give it freely." That moment has stuck with me ever since because I am someone who needs reminding again and again just how much God loves me.
This message of God's unconditional love is at the heart of the Christian faith, and yet so often we can fall into the trap of believing that we have to earn God's love. We struggle with our own self doubts and question how God could love someone like us. But the good news of the Christian faith is that there nothing we can do to make God love us any more than he already does, or to stop God loving us. Victor Hugo the French playwright and novelist once said: "The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather in spite of ourselves." You may have been asked the question "do you believe in God?" But an equally important question is "do you know that God believes in you?"
If you are reading this article and have ever wondered if God could love someone like you, know that he loves and delights in you right now.
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