Posts Tagged: God likes us

God’s Specific Likes about Us

On April 25, 2025 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

God pulled off a surprise love attack on me this morning. God lured me into the trap in a quite trivial way. I thought I would start my day, not by grading students’ assignments, but by reading and meditating on some Scripture. By the way, I am not saying that reading Scripture is trivial. The triviality was connected with the way in which God pulled off his Surprise.

I had started reading through the book of 1 Peter the other day. I got stuck in verse 1 of chapter 1, doing a word study on the word “exiles”. (I am thinking about writing a book. Tentative title: Slow Reading: How to Not Finish Any Book.)

So, I started reading (again!) verse 1. I am proud to report that I have finished 1 Peter 1:1! (Ain’t I special?) However, it was upon reading the following words that God bushwacked me with his divine love: “Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bythinia.” You don’t get it? I don’t blame you! But stick with me.

I knew that these were the names of Roman provinces and that they were in what is now Turkey. But I couldn’t remember precisely where they were, so I went to my Accordance software. It has so much good stuff in it, most of which I don’t know about.  I don’t even know how to navigate to it.

But I did find the map I was looking for—eventually. I scrolled down past all kind of interesting tables, charts, and maps. I was filled with joy at what an abundance of information I have literally at my fingertips. And then I thought about the abundance of wonderful people I’ve gotten to know (at least a little) over my lifetime. How incredibly wealthy I am, I thought to myself. God has been so good to me!

And then, I heard from God. “You haven’t seen anything yet, kid! I have all of eternity with you to show you interesting stuff.”

Now, I knew that this was indeed the voice of God, because the kind and loving tone of this remark is the hallmark of God’s communications to me. It is not the voice that I usually hear. The voices inside my head usually have some pretty cruel things to say to me.

But God wasn’t quite finished speaking yet. “And also, my dear child, I like and love how you are curious about and grateful for almost everything.”

Now, you may find it almost impossible to believe, but I have never in my life thought that God both liked and loved any particular thing about me. The idea (and it was just that, an idea) that God loves me was a general theological notion that I kind of, sort of believed. Now, however, the reality of the specificity of God’s love for me filled my entire body with light.

But God still wasn’t finished. “My child, there is actually a lot that I like and love about you.”

And you know what, my dear reader? The same is true for you and for everything else that God has made.

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“NOTHING TO IMPRESS”

On January 16, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

I’m learning a lot from our puppy.

I was looking at her this morning while I was making my breakfast.  She was in her new bed, contentedly chewing a hole in it.  I just felt such love for her, and I said, “You know, little dog, I’m just glad that you’re in the world.  You don’t need to do a thing to impress me.”

And immediately, I felt that God was saying to me—to me, “You know, my child, I’m just glad that you’re in the world.  You don’t need to do a thing to impress me.”

Ever since I was very little, I’ve felt that I needed to justify my existence on this planet.  I’ve felt that I needed to impress.  Probably many people think that this stems from an inflated sense of self-importance.  They couldn’t be more wrong!

I was the youngest of five children, born very late in the life of my parents, an accident.  To their great credit, they never made me feel like an accident.  Nevertheless, that is how I felt.

I grew up in the country, fairly poor.  In our little area, there were the “town kids” and the “country kids.”  You’ll find this difficult to believe, but the town kids tended to look down on the country kids.  Again, I needed to justify my existence.

Well, that’s two strikes against me.  The third was that I was fairly smart.  “Isn’t that a good thing?” I hear you ask.  No, it isn’t.

Strike three, and you’re out!

So, most of my life has boiled down to one of two responses.  Either I have wasted a lot of time trying to impress, or I have wasted a lot of time trying to immediately feel better when my attempts to impress failed.

Then, along comes our puppy (and our God) who both gently nuzzle me into being a little more gentle and accepting of myself.  I don’t need to justify my existence; I don’t need to impress anyone, not even God.  God not only loves me; God likes me.

I’m learning a lot from our puppy.

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