“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:7-10, NIV)
It is one of my central convictions: there is a place in God’s heart that only I can fill. Scripture confirms the heart of God, which is further echoed throughout the great “devotional classics.” Certainly Kierkegaard joins in too, in the unique way of using a poetic syllogism.
“This is the syllogism. Love (true love, not self-love which loves the remarkable, the brilliant and consequently really loves itself) stands in inverse ratio to the greatness and excellence of the object. And so if I am of infinitely, infinitely little importance, if in my wretchedness I feel myself to be the most miserable of all: then it is eternally, eternally certain that God loves me. Christ says: not a sparrow shall fall to earth unless it be at His will. Oh, I bid lower still, to God I am less than a sparrow—that God loves me become more certain still, the syllogism more solid still in its conclusion. It might seem to the Emperor of Russia that God could overlook him. God has so much to attend to and the Emperor of Russia is so great. But not a sparrow—for God is love, and love is in inverse ratio to the greatness and excellence of the object.”
Our relationship to God is not only of value to us but also to God. Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” But here is the question: could it be true that there is a place in God’s heart that only you can fill, that only I can fill? That God is restless until we rest in him?
That God is love and has a place in his heart that only you can fill is more than a thought. It’s a truth proclaimed in the most convincing way: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that you and I should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16, paraphrase)
Lay hold on what that means. God is restless until you come to him. If we love someone, we yearn for that person to love us. God loves you and yearns for you to love him. God will not allow death to destroy you. If your sin forever separates you from God, it will be your choice, not his: God has a place in his heart that only you can fill.
With unquestioned confidence, Kierkegaard wrote, “You feel lost in the world in your suffering, no one cares for you, alas, and you conclude, neither does God care for me. You fool! to speak thus of God. No, if there were anyone of whom it were literally true that he was of all the most neglected—he is the one whom God loves. Or if he were not quite the most neglected, if he still had a little human consolation—and were taken from him, in this very moment it would be more certain still that God loves him.”
Moment of Reflection: How might your thoughts, attitude, and actions change if you really believe there is a place in God’s heart that only you can fill?
Prayer: Eternal God, that I am important to you, the Lord of heaven and earth, fills me with new confidence. May I ever welcome your love. Amen.
Saints Alive! is available for purchase in print and Kindle versions HERE