I knew the affection of my parents not by how I felt but by what they did. The fact that my father went to work every day to provide for his family without indulging himself in hobbies or self-interest remains the most profound way I knew his love. It is the same for my mother. It was not the special things they did that the depth of their love for me was shown but in the ordinary of everyday life, the sacrifices of themselves for me and for my brother. It is nice to have flowery words spoken or to have received special things along the way but I did not depend upon these to know I was loved. They were not perfect parents or perfect people but they gave of themselves every day and I am the recipient of this love, along with my brother.
We say God is love but then we put God to the test all the time. If God really loved me... then, well, you fill in the blank. Sometimes people will confess that they ditched the faith because they did not feel God's love or know any special or unique way He expressed that love to them. Or, perhaps more accurately, everything else God had done was discounted because they could not believe that if God really loved them they would have suffered this or that along life's way. God's love was defined not by God but by the people and His love was subject to the conditions they attached to that love. Without these, they could not see how God is love or believe that God loved them.
The mark of God's love for us lies not with the special things we have counted upon and He has fulfilled but in the realm of the most basic thing of all. He forgives us. Forgiveness is the most profound act of love and the most costly. It could not be simply a word or decision on the part of God but required the incarnation of the Son, the agony of the cross, the suffering for sin by the sinless One, and the payment of all sins by the cleansed blood of His self-offering. Yet even this seems not to be enough for us. How easy it is for us to discount the power and manifest love revealed in the cross and look for something more, something that fits our mood, something that matches our feelings, and something that we set as the test of what His words of love mean.
The Christian answer to the question of how we know God's love for us is the Cross. “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). We might rather have God snuggle us in at night or speak quiet words only to us and not another or do for us what we demand as the condition for us to feel loved but faith trusts not in feelings nor even in words. It trusts in the cross. We each Christ crucified because the cross is where the eternal love of God is revealed and where we encounter it. It is nice to have your prayers answered now and again and to receive hidden voices in the night telling you little nothings in your ear but these pale before the cross. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2).
The more we define what love is by how we feel it or how well it lives up to our expectations, the less love we will know. That is why forgiveness is always a component of love, perhaps its deepest component. We know we are loved because the cross proclaims the forgiveness not earned nor merited nor even request but freely given. Such is the depth and height and length and breadth of God's love for us. In the same way, we would define love as approval for who we are and what we feel but God's love for us is manifest in His willingness to do all that is necessary to redeem us from the things we claim are who we are and how we feel but are really sin.
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