Weighed and Wanted

“It is impossible to believe that He loves such as Cornelius or Vavasor as He loves a Christopher. There must be a difference! The God of truth cannot love the unlovely in the same way as He loves the lovely. The one He loves for what he is and what he has begun to be; the other He loves because he sorely needs love—as sorely as the other and must begin to grow lovely one day.”

George MacDonald (From Weighed and Wanting)

If there comes a time when we think God does not love us because life simply is not going our way, let it occur to us He loves us as we need be loved. If God is who we think He should be and is, He must love His children not more or less, favored even, but loves us differently. God can only love us as He is capable of loving, not by gradient, but by fullness. To allow such a notion to sink in may explain the varied consequences and circumstances in which we find ourself. One person seems to have all the luck while the other finds that nothing goes his way, that his is the hard luck life. Of course our own hand has a part to play. But it is the purpose that belongs to God, that such a purpose allows us to see the truth He is teaching, that reliance is something placed on Him, and that He has by His means called us closer to Him.

Whatever circumstance or consequence we encounter, whatever settles into the regions of mind, may the thoughts not rest until our eyes are turned to God and ask, “Lord, what is it that you want me to know?” He will answer, in His way, in His time. Until such as His way and time come, ours is to endure with patience His love.

Remember the tadpole abides this stage in life in the quiet depressions of the sleeping streamlet, waters flowing over and by while unbeknownst to him life will turn him into an ugly frog. This the frog endures while he feeds on crickets, grasshoppers, and earthworms. Then one day, a princess comes his way, kisses him, and he becomes a handsome prince.

God loves until we become the lovely princess or the handsome prince. In every man and woman lives the prince and princess, the image of God in which we were created.

To remain the ugly frog shutters the heart and mind and eye to that lovely image within us. This shuttering is a sort of sloth, the kind that is more than indifference or ignoring or even being asleep. To the more, it is becoming so enamored with false belief and teaching there is no room for truth. This sloth is not simply being in the dark, it is seeking the dark where no light can get in.

Except, when God chooses to love us, He brings light to the dark where lovely or unlovely we become as He would have us.