How Has God Demonstrated His Love for You?

I’ve recently taken up my knitting needles and resumed the practice of making mittens. My homemade mittens used to warm the hands of my four sons, but these days I’m working on making mittens for my six grandkids. Right now, I’m over halfway through the second tiny pink pair.

I love being “Bam” to six little Morins, and this small, practical act of creativity is one way I can love them. I like to think that I’ve been knitting little prayers into each tiny pink stitch. Warm hands and cozy mittens will be solid evidence of my love for my grandkids.

We all demonstrate love in different ways. God has bent over backward to assure us of His love for us, and one very clear piece of evidence came to me as I was teaching this month’s Sunday school verse:

"For you, Lord, are kind and ready to forgive, abounding in faithful love to all who call on you.” (Psalm 86:5)

God’s forgiveness comes to us as an abundant flow of love prepared ahead of time for all our persistent wanderings.

I was curious about the Hebrew behind the phrase “faithful love,” so I did some digging, and, sure enough, it’s a translation of the word hesed. With no clear path to the English language, hesed has appeared in various versions of the Bible under several different labels. In fact, in 1535, Miles Coverdale invented the term “lovingkindness” in an attempt to translate hesed, and it is still in use in the American Standard Version.

More recently, the English Standard Version has employed the phrase “steadfast love.” The New Living favors “unfailing love,” but, in reality, the struggle with translation is only a pale adumbration of the true challenge–that of wrapping our minds around a God who hands out second chances to the guilty and opens the door of His life to welcome frail humanity.

Michael Card’s definition of hesed is simple and direct:

"When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.”

Hesed is put on display richly in God’s Old Testament dealings with the nation Israel, for He met their faithless betrayal with forgiveness and restoration. Then, Solomon stepped into the unbroken stream of hesed when he ascended to the throne of David:

"LORD God of Israel,
there is no God like You
in heaven or on earth,
who keeps His covenant and hesed
with Your servants who walk before You
with all their heart.” (II Chronicles 6:14)

The temple musicians set to music their wonder at hesed in abundance:

"Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His hesed endures forever.” (1 Chronicles 16:34)

And the psalmists vented their outrage over its lack:

"God of my praise, do not be silent, for wicked and deceitful mouths open against me ... Let no one show him hesed . . . for he did not think to show hesed.” (Psalm 109:1, 2, 12, 16)

The Struggle to Embody Hesed

The prophet Hosea was assigned the task of putting God’s hesed on display in his calling to love and marry a prostitute, despite her ongoing unfaithfulness. Though she has no right to expect anything from Hosea, he will lavish everything on her. Their relationship will incarnate the meaning of hesed.

The Apostle John picks up the theme in the New Testament with his description of Jesus, the Word, who came to us “from the Father, full of hesed and truth.” In eight of Jesus’s thirty parables, He defines hesed either by its lack (the unforgiving servant) or by its rich exemplification (the Good Samaritan).

While we are often unclear about God’s expectations for us, the example of Jesus bore out the truth that “hesed is always something you do.” (116) This has vast implications in a world where “doing justly, loving mercy (hesed), and walking humbly with God” may be subject to wildly disparate interpretations.

And since hesed is something we do, what are the implications of such a counter-cultural doing? For some of us, the love of God and our love for God will take us into very public and even dangerous places. And for some of us…?

We’ll keep on knitting.

• How faithfully is my “doing” flowing from my “loving?” Is my “love” in keeping with the love of God toward the undeserving?
• How would my actions and motives be different if I understood—and trusted—God’s deep and never-failing love, mercy, and kindness toward me?
• Can 21st-century believers find the sweet spot where our compassionate outrage over injustice is both offered to God with trust and paired with action on behalf of the oppressed?