Why Jesus Loves Me

I believe a peculiar lie for many, many years: I will only experience Jesus if my life is in order and my relationships are happy. I equate His love with whether my life lines up perfectly, whether it's grief-free. So when life comes tumbling down, as it is apt to do, I wonder if Jesus still loves me, if He cares about my losses. I ask myself questions like, "Do I serve a capricious God, who pushes over the dominoes of my life on a whim?" or "Do I have a Job-like mark on my head?" or "Why can't God give me a break from woe once in a while?" But Jesus loves me more than that, more than giving me what I think I need. Because if life is perfect all the time, where would my need be? If everything goes according to my plan, why do I need to trust?

Hefty verses come to mind, ones that frighten and enlighten: "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today: otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint. In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end" (Deuteronomy 8:11-16).

I am a fickle Jesus-lover. I become proud quicker than a clam eluding a shovel, and my soul is just as slippery. I'm a forgetter. I forget the wildernesses He walks me through, forgetting His hand in the trials. Thankfully, I serve a God who loves me so much that He digs out my messes through the shovel of trial. In that I've learned the paradoxical truth: trials are the places He allows because he loves my soul and longs to see it soar.

How easy it is to write this, but so hard to live. I battle my own private grief on many fronts these days. Sometimes the grief feels like a forest impenetrable, its thick branches obscuring the sky. Instead of climbing the raggedy trunks, branch over branch to reach the sky, I find myself groveling on the forest floor, grabbing for sympathy.

It's never enough.

And that's the point, isn't it?

Only God can fill the emptiness of grief. The grief of misunderstandings, trials upon trials, hollow opinions, and judgments unfair. Only God. Imagine my surprise when I read these words today by A. B. Simpson in Streams in the Desert, a direct confirmation: "The secret of knowing God's complete sufficiency is coming to the end of everything in ourselves and our circumstances. Once we reach this point, we will stop seeking sympathy for our difficult situation or ill treatment, because we will recognize these things as the necessary conditions for blessings. We will then turn from our circumstances to God, realizing they are the evidence of Him working in our lives."[i] A. B. Simpson's point is that the evidence of Jesus' love is the difficult circumstances of life. Sometimes I fully understand this. Sometimes I whine and complain.

But very seldom do I thank God for trials and grief. George Matheson's words challenge me: "My dear God, I have never thanked You for my thorns. I have thanked You a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorns. I have always looked forward to the place where I will be rewarded for my cross, but I have never thought of my cross as a present glory itself. Teach me, O Lord, to glory in my cross. Teach me the value of my thorns. Show me how I have climbed to You through the path of pain.Show me it is through my tears I have seen my rainbows."[ii]

It's true, you know. My pain produces glory. Jesus performs that miracle in me. I don't often like that path, but it's where He has me. I'm learning to thank Jesus for the thorns, pierce me as they may. I want to thank Him, though my prayer is that the trials and thorns pierce my heart in such a way that it bleeds as Jesus bleeds. I want to climb above the forest trees and reach the heights where Jesus can shine on me in this quiet place. And give me rest.

That's the beauty of this Jesus-following life. He sends trials and ick our way, but then He meets us there, healing us, leading us, helping us. He builds character to withstand even greater trials. After enduring one of the most difficult times in France, I read this quote: "If you are a victim of a violent crime, or lose a loved one, or get fired from a job, the first need is for healing, recovery and time to regroup. Rebuilding energy capacity requires gradually re-exposing ourselves to the demands of the world that dealt us the setback in the first place. So long as sufficient healing has occurred, it is often possible to build capacity past our previous limits"[iii]

Isn't that a good picture of this life? We are hurt. We experience trauma and grief. Then God pulls us away to breathe, to heal, to recover.

Tentatively, we put a toe back into the pond of life until we are able to re-engage. Why do I go through so much? Maybe so I can push beyond what I thought I can handle, with God's strength.

Going through severe trials push us to the Father, who aptly shoulders our grief. Our capacity, then, isn't to become great in ourselves, but to trust the One who is great on our behalf. The more trials (and the more we lean into Jesus during them and after them as we heal), the more trust. I learn that I am not, but I know and am empowered by I AM.

How am I perfect and complete? When I trust in Jesus. How do I get to that place? By rejoicing in trials because I know that through them I'll become stronger in Him. I'll be like James who croons, "When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence" (James 1:2-4, Phillips). Through the trials Jesus allows, I learn the power and beauty of endurance. No amount of happy-clappy circumstances will ever bring that about.

Though I don't always welcome trials as treasured friends, I am learning to welcome Jesus in the midst. I long for Him to make something beautiful out of the raw materials of me through the crucible of unmet expectations, difficult relationships, and grief. It's strange, isn't it? The painful places of my life, where I experience His presence as if He's nearer than my skin, are often the most difficult places I've walked. Maybe that's the surprising beauty of Christ-following--not that we supersede trials by denying them or relying our own pull-us-up-by-the-bootstrap strength, but that Jesus meets us in the midst. In places of despair He shines His presence, gives us the power we need to face the despair, and then bolsters us to meet new trials tomorrow--all because of His affection for us.

That's why I know Jesus loves me.