Photo Credit: Judy Klein
Photo Credit: Judy Klein

Do you believe that you are utterly loveable? That you are loved unconditionally by an all-loving God? That nothing you think, say or do can ever change God’s love for you? This is the fundamental question of the human condition—a question we spend our entire lives trying to get answered.

Thanks to my two-year-old grandson, Joseph, I’ve had ample opportunity to meditate upon this question of late. That’s because adorable little Joseph—a tiny tot who consists entirely of unrelenting preciousness—walked around during our family vacation asking everyone in his presence, with the weight of his whole twenty-seven pounds behind each impromptu inquiry: “Do you love me?” He consistently caught me off guard with his question, and I wish I had a picture of the satisfied, delighted look on his face every time he received an enthusiastic “Yes!” We relished in the game repeatedly…until I changed the rules.

“Joseph, do you love me?” I asked him back.

“Yessth,” he replied.

“How much?” I added playfully.

He looked completely perplexed, so I showed him how to raise his arms wide out front and say, “I love you this much!”

The game really got interesting when I upped the ante. “Well, I love you THIS much!” I said, opening my arms wider than his.

“You cheated!” he exclaimed spontaneously in a frustrated voice, reducing me to hearty laughter. And he was right.

We cheat love when we begin to measure it, when we place it on systems of scales that ultimately grow out of systems of human performance. I’ve thought a lot this week about how I often do that in my relationship with God.

“How much do you love me, God?” I challenge unconsciously. “Will you love me more if I get it right, do it right, act just right?” Of course, I never say these things out loud, and I am usually unaware that I’m playing the performance game with God. At least, not until I quiet down and get still enough to open myself to God’s heart-penetrating gaze, and simply ask, as little Joseph frequently asks: “Will you hold me?”  In those moments I catch a glimpse of how hard I try to measure up, believing it can somehow win me more love, grace, blessing. It is then that I become convinced that God desires not for us to achieve but to rest, to rest in the infinite embrace of His love that it may soften us, heal us, transform us and fill us with peace.

When we begin to measure God’s love against our being able to earn it, deserve it, or be worthy of more (or less) of it, we cheat Love entirely of His veracity. Because here’s the thing—God is love, and He knows no other way. He loves us infinitely, unconditionally, unyieldingly, and nothing we think, say or do can ever change that fact. God’s love does not come packaged in systems of weights and measures. Instead, it is given freely, totally, unreservedly. There’s only one question He asks of us: “will you receive it?” Our answer lies in another question: do we believe it?

When I asked little Joseph how much he loved me, his face betrayed the fact that he hadn’t the first clue what I was talking about. Childlike in his faith, Joseph believes absolutely that he is loved, and he neither challenges the answer when it is given nor understands how to measure it. Intuitively, he knows that to enclose love in the small space between one’s arms is to cheat. Maybe that’s what Jesus meant for us to learn when He insisted that we become like little children.