In yesterday’s blog, The Fallen Father, we were exploring trust issues caused by broken family relationships.  Towards the end of the article, it was discussing the difficulty of trusting God, the Father, when our earthly father couldn’t be trusted.  And if you can’t trust God, how can you get to know Him.

If you want to learn who God is, the best place to go is His scripture, the Holy Bible. After all, this is His book. God-breathed text to tell all the history between Him and His people. It is also a book of instructions for better living filled with His promises. Some people would call the Bible His love letter to the world.

The verse I think succinctly describes God is 1 John 4:8 (ESV) which states “God is love.” Still how can this help you understand God if you don’t truly understand love? This may seem like an odd question especially for people who were raised in loving homes. But think about it for a moment. Do you really know what love is? In our broken world, sometimes the love we experience is much more like hate.

To explore love from God’s perspective, let’s look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (ESV):

Love is patient and kind
Love does not envy or boast
It is not arrogant or rude
It does not insist on its own way
It is not irritable or resentful
It does not rejoice at wrong doing but rejoices with truth
Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love never ends.

Consider your life and relationships for a moment. Have you ever experienced this kind of love? Have you ever extended this kind of love to another? I imagine that it would be far easier to think of times and situations where you received or extended exactly the opposite. And I think that based on my own experiences especially before I met Jesus.

Let’s push on this a little further. If God is love, then the list above describes who God is. As you grow closer to Him, the more you will be able to see His love in your life, and the more you will see yourself loving others. And over time as you reflect back on your life, you will be able to see when He was there even though you did not know Him yet. He has been there all along waiting for you to accept His love and grace.

All people have a deep need for love within us. God understands this need, because He made us that way. And He is the only one who can truly fill our need for love.