He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not?

I have played that game most of my life, trying to sort out in any given moment how God might feel about me personally. I grew up learning that he is a God of love, and for the most part I believed it to be true. In good times, nothing is easier to believe. In days when my family is healthy and our relationships a joy; when my ministry thrive and both income and ooportunity increase; when we have plenty of time to enjoy our friends and are not burdened down with need, who wouldn't be certain of God's love?

But that certainty when those times of bliss are interrupted with more troublesome events...

The day one of my friends in high school died of a brain tumor even as we prayed earnestly for his healing.

When I wasn't selected for a job I wanted in college because someone had lied about me.

The night my house was robbed...

Then I wonder how God really felt about me. I couldn't understand how a God who loved me would either allow such things into my life or wouldn't finx them immediately so that I or people I loved wouldn't have to endure such pain...

Only in the last twelve years have I discovered that my methods of discerning God's love were as flawed as pulling petals from a daisy. I haven't been the same since.

- He Loves Me! Learning to Live in the Father's Affection by Wayne Jacobsen