When You Struggle to Feel God's Love预览

Wanted: The Great Introduction Of Your Story

Scripture:

“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31 ESV)

Like an artist beholding his masterpiece, God beheld all He made and declared: “very good.” This “very good” wasn’t a declaration of functionality (as a manufacturer might declare about the capability of a machine) but a declaration of delight (as you would proclaim, with sauce still on your face, about an exceptional meal, like my mother-in-law’s sancocho).

So here’s the great introduction to your story: you are wanted. God didn’t need to make you, but He wanted to make you. He didn’t create you as a mere slave to fill some sort of lack within Himself, but because He wanted you to share in the overabundant love He has for His Son (John 17:23, 26; 2 Cor. 4:6).

Author Michael Reeves explains: “Why might God decide to have a creation? One of the earliest attempts at an answer can be seen in ancient Babylon’s creation myth, Enuma Elish. There the god Marduk puts it bluntly: he will create humankind so that the gods can have slaves. . . . most gods since have tended to like his approach.”[1]

Non-biblical creation stories involving a one-person deity (or warring deities) can’t possibly claim to have created us out of a generous overflow of love. That’s why understanding God as a perfectly unified, eternal community of love (the Trinity) is crucial to understanding our own origin story. We were made out of the overabundance of the “triune Community-of-Love”[2]—not His lack and certainly not under compulsion.

Out of God’s delight and desire, you and I were masterfully knit together in our mothers’ wombs (Ps. 139:13).

Whether you were born to loving parents, abusive parents, or parents you’ve never known, you weren’t made by accident but intentionally by Love Himself. If you’re breathing right now, you can confidently declare: “I am wanted.”

Call to Action:

Here’s a writing prompt for you today: Do you feel like this truth (that you are wanted by God) affirms, or perhaps rubs up against, what you’ve experienced to be true? If you were to write the “Introduction” of your life story, how would this truth shape what you say?

[1] Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012), 39–40.

[2] Ruth Padilla DeBorst, “Church, Power, and Transformation in Latin America,” Majority World

Theology: Christian Doctrine in Global Context (Westmont, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 498.