Topic : God, love of
Dog Loves You
Every year the youngest children in the Trinity Lutheran preschool in Crown Point, Indiana, steal the show at their end-of-the-year program. This year they did the usual waves to parents, mugging and tugging at their clothes. The highlight came when 11 children—none of whom could yet read—proudly held up brightly colored 3-foot-high letters that spelled: DOG LOVES YOU.
C. H. Spurgeon
One day C. H. Spurgeon was walking through the English countryside with a friend. As they strolled along, the evangelist noticed a barn with a weather vane on its roof. At the top of the vane were these words: GOD IS LOVE. Spurgeon remarked to his companion that he thought this was a rather inappropriate place for such a message. “Weather vanes are changeable,” he said, “but God’s love is constant.”
“I don’t agree with you about those words, Charles,” replied his friend. “You misunderstood the meaning. That sign is indicating a truth: Regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love.”
Rosemary’s Rag Doll
There is a natural, logical kind of loving that loves lovely things and lovely people. That’s logical. But there is another kind of loving that doesn’t look for value in what it loves, but that CREATES value in what is loves. Like Rosemary’s rag doll.
When Rosemary, my youngest child, was three, she was given a little rag doll, which quickly became an inseparable companion. She had other toys that were intrinsically far more valuable, but none that she loved like she loved the rag doll.
Soon the rag doll became more and more rag and less and less doll. It also became more and more dirty. If you tried to clean the rag doll, it became more ragged still. And if you didn’t try to clean the rag doll, it became dirtier still. The sensible thing to do was to trash the rag doll. But that was unthinkable for anyone who loved my child. If you loved Rosemary, you loved the rag doll—it was part of the package.
“If anyone says ‘I love God’ yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar,” (I John 4:20) “love me, love my rag dolls,” says God, “including the one you see when you look in the mirror. This is the first and greatest commandment.”
- Ian Pitt-Watson
