unconditional love

"Praise the Lord, O my soul; and forget not all his benefits--who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. ...

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."--Psalm 103:2-5, 8-12

Just to follow up on the last post, there are tons of scriptures like this, but Psalm 103 is one of my all time favorites. One of the things that helps me enjoy God most is remembering his unconditional love. Seeing in print that he does not treat us as our sins deserve reminds me that God still loves me despite the fact that I will sin (by falling into it or willingly finding it) as long as I am wrapped in my flesh here on Earth. His unconditional love is real after all!

Carrie's comment reminded me of something I learned on my first mission trip. Ten years ago I went to Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia for 7 long weeks in the summer. I was going to change the world and tell them all about Jesus. Well.....it turned out to be much harder than I expected. There was a certain amount of culture shock I had not counted on having, and as we met students it seemed that many of them were more interested in meeting Americans than in meeting the Messiah.

But one of our fearless leaders, Nate Jones, gave a devotion about God's unconditional love. He said that there was nothing any of us could do to make God love us any more or any less than He loved us right then in that moment. If we were to go and serve the Lord in Africa for the rest of our days, we would not earn any more of God's love.........and on the flip side, if we became absolute sloths and did nothing until our dying day, God would love us no less. There would be consequences to either choice, obviously, but it was so freeing to realize that my works do not earn God's favor. He loves me because he created me, and I will be most fulfilled and satisfied when I am submitting to His will for me.

That freedom allowed me to watch the Lord work that summer. He worked in and through me some, but more than anything, He worked through our group as we enjoyed fellowship with each other. Our joy spoke volumes to many people who were hurting and longing for purpose in a mostly atheistic culture. More than anything, I enjoyed depending on the Lord in a way I never had before.

Being a mom is similar because there are so many days that I either don't know what to do next in raising Lewis or I do not get done what I intended to do. Thinking about this concept of leisure the last couple of weeks has allowed me to enjoy some things I haven't done in a long time, sometimes leaving some chores undone. As always, thanks for your comments!