Every night, when I put my kids to bed, I pray for them. I make sure they’re all settled in, and then, as I leave the room, I say, “Hey, you know what? You’re a great kid, and I love you, and God loves you!” (I want those words to be the last they hear from me at the end of each day. Plus, it’s a great reminder as they go off to sleep.)
The other night, I had put Timmy in his crib, made sure he had his sport cup tucked in with him, and covered him with his blanket. I stroked his head, preparing to begin my prayer for him, which I usually begin the same way (and which I’ve heard him quote before). “What does Mommy say?” I asked him.
“’No, Timmy! No!’” Timmy responded matter-of-factly.
I couldn’t help but laugh. As an active two-year-old, Timmy does indeed hear some variation of those words several times a day. He loves exploring and getting into things, and sometimes, he wants to mix into things that aren’t good for him. When that happens, I have to tell him no.
Nonetheless, his answer made me laugh, because it wasn’t the answer I was expecting (accurate though it was). It also made me think.
You and I both know that what we say to our children on a regular basis is going to get stuck in their heads. God understands this principle, too (of course), and He uses it in a positive way to try to get His words into our minds and hearts.
Just look at the Bible. Over and over in the Bible, God tells us how much He loves us. He tells us repeatedly how special we are to Him.
Why does He do this? Because He forgot He said it before? Hardly. He repeats Himself because He knows that if He only says it once, we’re not going to get it. We need to hear it time after time in order to even begin to absorb it.
If God were to ask us, “What do I say to you?” He would want us to respond, “You say, ‘I love you!’” He wants this knowledge of His love so to pervade our minds and hearts that we’re always thinking about it—and so that when those other voices come, telling us that we’re worthless, we’ll realize they are not His voice.
As if it weren’t enough for God to tell us over and over in the Old Testament that He loves us, He also sent His Son down here to show us. Then, in the New Testament, He tells us some more. “I love you! I love you! I love you!”
This is the message He wants us to hear playing in our heads when we think of Him. So He tells us over and over in Scripture, He sends His Son to show us, and He continues to tell us throughout our days, in thousands of ordinary ways.
If God tries to communicate this message to you so many times and in so many different ways, don’t you think it must be pretty important to Him? The reason it’s so important is that He wants you to know what He is like, to feel deeply, passionately loved, and to therefore desire a relationship with Him.
I encourage you to spend some time this week—today, even—meditating on God’s love for you. Get your Bible out, and look up some passages that talk about how much God loves you. (If you’re not sure how to do that, there are some great topical concordances online that can help.) No matter where you are in your understanding of God’s love, this practice of meditating on what He has said to you will help you record these words in your mind and heart so that they’ll play back when you need them, and sometimes even for no particular occasion except that God wants to send you a “love note” right then.
The Bible is all about God’s love for you and desire for an intimate relationship with you. Shouldn’t you spend some time thinking about what it says?
Romans 5:5b—God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (ESV)
