“I know God loves me but does He like me?” asked my counselee.
I will be honest and say that internally, I felt instant indignation. The term, ‘like’, falls so far beneath the idea of biblical love. Biblically speaking, I don’t know what it means. For me it was an unnecessary question, but for my counselee, it was a worthy exploration. I tried diligently to hear the question behind the question.
At a cursory glance, this seems like such a reasonable question, but with a full examination the question is without a doubt already answered inside God’s mind-boggling demonstration of love. My very existence sings amatus sum, amor, amabor – I was loved, I am loved, and I will be loved!
What does it mean to like someone? This is how I decided to define it.
It means that I want to be with them. I want to spend my time with them and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that it happens. I prefer them and I will arrange life so that they are with me. Does this not describe our God?
First, He decided to create mankind –in His image, I might add. God decided to make me like HIM. He was making a creature like HIMSELF. Though I am not suggesting we always get this right, I think I can safely say that humans prefer things that are like themselves. I definitely enjoy things and persons that are similar to me. If it were not so, then computer algorithms that lure us toward ‘common interest groups’ would not work. We pool on the internet around common interests and likes – not dislikes. Enter our God. HE creates what HE likes. After all He said it was very good. If I create something and call it very good, then I like it!
Not only did HE create me in His image, but God ensured my individual existence. He designed me especially. He could have made anybody but He made each of us individually and distinctly and keeps us alive. I, and only I, am me! There is only one God and there is only one me, handcrafted. Sometimes we handcraft things based on a special order but mostly we bring unique creations into being, that we yearn to make. We make it, we knit it, we carve it, we mold it, because we like the design. And so did God, when He made you and me.
He created me in His image, crafted me as an individual, and thirdly, HE rescued me from eternal misery. God saw that I would get into trouble and made provisions ahead of time. Even if I happened to live prior to Jesus coming to earth, my sins are covered. How often have humans remade this scene in the movies? The girl is falling or tripping down a flight of stairs, through space, off the train, off the roof, over her skates, out of her chair – you name the place. Enter the knight in shining armor, into whose arms she falls. It is classically love at first sight. That’s what God did. “I was pushed hard so that I was falling but the Lord helped me” (Psalm 118:13). I fell, He caught me. It is ‘like and love’, at first fall.
Fourthly, He’s working to fix up a place so we can be together. Listen to what He says so beautifully in John 14:1-3:
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
And we should also consider the lovely prayer Jesus prays for us in John 17 where he says, “Father, I desire that they also, …may be with me where I am…”
Wow! He’s building a home for us. He wants to be with us. He wants us to be as loved as He is. I would make no such provision for persons I did not ‘like’, since we must use that word. I want to be with persons that I like. So does He.
Lastly, we see in His love letter, that HE left something for us to remember Him by. On earth, it’s often a necklace, or a ring or a jacket, or even a letter that I get to keep while my beloved goes away for a spell. Is it not the same with God? “I will not leave you alone”, He says. I will send you a comforter who will be with you and remind you of all I have said to you. Here’s a keepsake, the Holy Spirit, until I return. We rewrite God’s story over and over on the movie screen but we rename it and call it our own. It is God who always remembers us and reminds us of His love for us.
What is the conclusion of the matter? I would say it’s this: Jesus left his throne, came to earth for us and will return once more for us. I do NOT go to my happy place (my heavenly home) and then return to earth for people I don’t like.
Can I answer my counselee’s question now of whether He likes me? I think I can. That’s why I smile along with Peter when he pens:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
So, as we pluck the petals from the flower and toss around the classic question whether He loves me or loves me not, and as we consider my definition of ‘like’ at the beginning, I would have to conclude and say to my counselee: HE loves me, HE loves me a lot! HE likes me, HE likes me more than I thought. God’s love subsumes like.
No, He is NOT a human that is currently present with me. I cannot equate my Lord’s desire for me with a human-to-human attraction, and I must remember that all of my human relationships are fleeting, inconsistent and temporary. Human attraction is not the standard but somehow a reflection of the Standard Relationship of Relationships. We only get a glimpse here on earth. Jesus Christ is the permanent, steady, everlasting bridegroom. And so, for the sake of Christ, I am content with my relational deficits here for He is coming for me and every eye will see. I will be with Him for He ‘likes’ me and is coming again. I wanna go back with HIM when He comes. How about you, counselee??
Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash