The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3
“It is not always easy to believe that we are unconditionally loved even when those who love us disagree with us or disapprove of us. But this is the love with which God loves us and wants us to love each other. It is a love that includes even those who treat us as enemies, who reject us or are angry with us. Because once we know in the depth of our hearts that we are forgiven children of God, we will always be able to forgive those who cannot respond to our love.
What are the implications of all of this for our daily life? Here are a few.
1. Keep in touch with your own belovedness. Prayer, good friends, and nature can help you a lot with this.
2. Never react impulsively to those who hurt you. Respond from the heart where you know that you are loved. Always take time and ask yourself, “What is the best and most honest response I can make?’
3. Do not compromise your own integrity. Simply trying to please the person who hurts you is a way of compromising yourself. Always stand straight!
4. Be consistent in your relationships. Sudden outbursts of anger or sudden gestures of intimacy make you lose solid ground and only make real healing and reconciliation more difficult.
5. Always be kind, open to listen, willing to talk and generous in forgiving, but never at the cost of losing your freedom as a child of God.
6. Be very patient. What seems impossible one year might be quite possible the next!
7. In everything keep a sense of humor and deep gratitude for the gifts of life and love.
8. Always trust, trust, and trust.”
Henri Nouwen in Love, Henri: Letters on the Spiritual Life (New York: Convergent, 2016) in his letter to Joan Kroc, the wife of the founder of the McDonald’s hamburger chain. She met regularly to discuss the spiritual life with Henri. In 1995, after one of their meetings, Henri wrote her this reflection on unconditional love.
Generous is God’s love for us. Unfathomably generous!
God put Henri in a place where he interacted with really influential people who wrestled with the implications of God’s unconditional love. We might be tempted to think that we don’t know the wife of the founder of McDonalds so we can’t have impact in the lives of influential people. But the reality is that everyone is special to God.
And we can impact those around us by living in light of His generous love.
Who do you know that you could help soak in the implications of God’s generous and unconditional love toward us? Who are you talking to this week that could benefit from these words? Sit with this list. Pick a point on it. Ponder it. Share how God speaks to you through it with someone you know. See what happens.