Love is

The middle of a flight must be one of the oddest places to be touched by God. But I suppose stranger things have happened.

I have a long history of finding it difficult to feel loved. And I have always struggled to understand why. Why is it that no matter what anyone does for me, I still don't feel that they really love me, and I keep doubting their sincerity?

More importantly: Why is it that I can't feel that God loves me? I know in my head the Sunday School answer that Jesus came and died for my sins. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…" everyone knows that verse.

Yet, deep inside me, something within rejects that. It refuses to be moved by such a profound truth. When I am honest with myself, deep down inside, there is a quiet, terrified voice saying, "Yes, Jesus came to die for the sins of everyone… except for me".

On the flight home from NZ, I began reading CJ Maheney's "Living the Cross Centred Life". There is stuff I read there that I don't think I fully emotionally "get". But then I got to part where he went through Isaiah 53 and painted the picture of Jesus' death for our sake. He went on to say: "Who killed Jesus? God did. God the Father was ultimately responsible for the death of His Son. God is telling us, "I purposefully determined to crush My Son with My wrath - for your sins, as your substitute. Why? Because I love you." When you're tempted to doubt God's love for you, stand before the cross and look at the wounded, dying, disfigured Saviour, and realise why He is there. I believe His Father would whisper to us, "Isn't that sufficient? I haven't spared My own Son; I deformed and disfigured and crushed Him - for  you. What more could I do to persuade you that I love you?"

As I read those words and Isaiah 53, realisations started to grow within me slowly. As I gazed with my mind's eye upon Jesus' battered body on the cross, the blood dripping down from His body with the Wrath of God upon His shoulders, I realised that I have made a grave, grave error throughout my life.

Why did I not feel loved by God? Because I had rejected His love. It wasn't that He had not poured out His love to me as well; it was that He had done so but I had wilfully rejected it in my heart because I was bitter and angry at Him for all the wrong reasons. I refused to see that His outstretched arms on the Cross embraced me as well.

When I heard that phrase, "What more could I do to persuade you that I love you?" though, I was struck numb. Every time I repeated that in my head, it was as if a battering ram repeatedly slammed against the cold stone walls of my hard and bitter heart. What more could He do? He had spared nothing to get to me. He had sacrificed even His only Son, the most precious thing to Him.

Finally, the blood dripping from Jesus' body onto me reached my cold heart and brought life back into it. Finally, I realise that His arms have been around me all along, but I had simply refused to see it. Finally I could breathe in deep and be nourished by His cleansing Spirit, rather than be poisoned by my pervasive bitterness.

I don't know how far I will go before I get tripped up and fall down again. But at least I know what to do now: If you're ever doubtful about God's love, just gaze at the Cross.