by: Lisa Bevere
From Chapter 1: An Identity without Rival
Often in our human attempts to make all things fair, we are tempted to think that God loves us all the same. As good as this may initially sound, same just isn’t big enough. The word same implies that we might be somehow replaceable or interchangeable. Like, “Oh no, I broke one of the purple glasses I bought at Target last week; I hope they still have the same ones in stock.” Or using my current example, “The dog I loved for more than a decade wandered off the grid. That’s okay; I’ll just buy another one to replace her and I will love it just the same.”
This doesn’t work for me, and I don’t believe it works for God either- and I will tell you why.
One afternoon I took a nap. The problem was I was on my laptop and not my bed when I fell asleep. As my head bobbed forward, I abruptly woke up to discover eight pages of the letter “t”.
At which point I felt like I really should go and take a real nap. So I picked up the dog at my feet and wandered off to my bedroom. As I was dozing off, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper, “I do not love my children equally.”
Shocked, I sat straight up in my bed. Where did this blasphemous thought come from? I blurted out, “You have to love us the same or else it wouldn’t be fair.”
My protest was answered with, “I don’t. Equal implies my love can be measured, and I assure you…it cannot. Same would mean my children are replaceable or interchangeable, and they are not. My heart is not divided into compartments. No one could take the place of or displace another in my heart. For you see, I don’t love my children equally, I love them uniquely.”
Our prayer is that you find this excerpt from Lisa Bevere’s book inspiring and thought provoking… Have we limited God because of our perception of who He is? Have we limited ourselves because we don’t truly see ourselves as God does?