Taken For Granted

See what great love the Father has for us that He would call us His children. And that is what we are. For this reason the people of the world do not know who we are because they did not know Him.  1 John 3:1

My wife and I will celebrate our first date together next week.  It will have been over 32 years since that day.  We worked together, and were at a company Christmas party.  Afterward, we would decide to officially date each other one month later.  I never really appreciated that moment then.  I do today.  She has hung in there with me through a lot of ups and downs, and she has been the epitome of the 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (Love is patient, love is kind . . . love never fails).  I was not always a good husband to her, and there were times where I simply took her love for granted.  But even as we fight over what’s best for our daughter or she nags me for umpteenth time about something I did not do, I am incredibly humbled that she chose me as her husband.  I strive to never take her love for me for granted. This brought me to where my appreciation is for God’s love for me, and do I take it for granted.  Am I serving Him out of love?  Do I do things without even focusing on or appreciating it?

The greatest of all things God provides us with is His love. There are times we might focus on how God has given us grace and done miraculous things leaving us wondering how it was even possible.  He has carried many of us through rough times so often that we could not remember them all if we tried.  Yet, today I wrote with this feeling of unending warmth from the love God has for us.  We get caught up with so much going on around us, and we often go to God for help, thanksgiving, and affirmation.  However, one thing we should really focus on is just how overwhelming His is.  If you take a moment to pause and feel His presence, it’s as if His arms are wrapped around you holding you like a father holds his infant child.  God’s love is not something we place figuratively in our hip pocket.  As His children, His love should be at the forefront of everything we do.  It is the air that we breathe.  Without it, we cannot survive.

There is nothing we cannot overcome if we approach things with the love of God in our hearts.  1 Corinthians 13:13 (NLT) goes on to say, “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”  Why would we ever let anything else take its place?  While there are many things that go seemingly devoid of it, we must dedicate ourselves to always remember the love God has for us, and then love Him and others fueled by it.  What situation requires you to invest more love into it?  How can you remind yourself how much God loves you?  My prayer is that we put God’s love at the forefront in our lives and never ever take it for granted.  Amen.