On the flip side, it saddens me when people say, "My pets are my children." No they're not. We all love our pets. We love our parents, our siblings, and our spouses. None of that compares to how we love our kids.
Of course, sadly, there are unhealthy parents out there, but most parents are united in a borderline insane love for their children. Forget mama bears; don't get between a mama and her children. I enjoy seeing a father walking along holding his little girl's hand, knowing he's in absolute heaven and she has no idea.
I'm sure I was not alone in being completely unprepared for this. When we were expecting our first child, we did all the things modern couples do. We studied each sonogram picture like it was a treasure map. We tried to make the baby's room the perfect, welcoming environment. We talked about hopes and dreams and fears and all our baby might be.
Then she arrived. The nurse took her aside, cleaned her up a bit, and I got to go over to the bassinet to see her. She was blotchy, crusty, cranky, and indescribably beautiful. I went back to my wife who asked, "How is she?" I burst into tears. Which panicked my wife. I pulled myself together: "No, no, she's fine. She's ... perfect."
I'm told mine was not an uncommon reaction. Actor Ryan Reynolds, for example, told an interviewer how he loved his wife more than anything in the world. Then she gave birth. As he looked down upon his child, "I knew I'd use her as a human shield" to protect that baby.
OK, Reynolds is always over the top, but you get the point: You think you know what love is, then that hits you. There's just no way to warn people. It's an order of magnitude beyond anything they've ever felt, and there's no way to describe it. They have no clue what's waiting for them. All we can do is smile knowingly and wait to enjoy the show.
At some point, for me it was the next day, the realization kicks in, "Is this how my parents feel about me?" Then you feel you need to apologize for so much. I'm not saying I actually apologized, but I felt like I should.
Then the next child comes along. Is that love split in two, shared between your children? No, a fresh supply seems to arrive with each child. You have more than enough love for two or four or, presumably, twenty. There seems to be an inexhaustible supply.
So what's the point in this little walk down memory lane? Only that, when the scriptures tell us God loves us, we have no clue.
Yes, God's not simply a bigger, more powerful version of us. He's an entirely different kind of being. He's not old, he's eternal. He's not stronger, he's all-powerful. He's unimaginably different. But he made us to love, so it's reasonable to think that his love is similar in ways to our love.
Just so, so much more. "As high as the heavens are above the earth" more (Psalm 103:11).
What kind of love does it take to die for those who hate you? What kind of love takes enemies and makes them children?
I love my dog, but if my kids were starving, I'd feed them the dog if necessary. But God took on flesh to die for me.
We hear it so often, we can become numb to hearing that God loves us. Don't shrug it off, "yes, I know that." Be amazed by it again. God's love for you is as much greater than your love for your children as your love for them is greater than your love for a pet. Only more so.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:18-19)
Image via Pixabay
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