I used to listen to a podcast with a recurring bit where one of the co-hosts would routinely interrupt the other by saying, “Well, as a father, I think…” The joke was that he—being the one with kids—was given an extra dose of wisdom by virtue of his fatherhood. What made the joke funnier was that they rarely discussed anything remotely related to parenting. My wife and I recently welcomed our first child, and as a new parent, I can confidently say there are no spontaneous bequeathals of wisdom. What you do get, though, is a lot of time to think (albeit at 3:00 am with a crying baby).
One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is a certain phrase I’ve heard Christian parents say over the years. It usually goes something like this: “I didn’t really understand God’s love until I had a kid.” From a certain vantage point, this sentiment makes sense. To be clear, becoming a parent doesn’t give you special access to previously unattainable insights about God (trust me). Nevertheless, I think this phrase reflects the overwhelming nature of love parents feel for a new child—a love that is powerful, protective, initially one-sided, and filled with delight. It’s a love that makes parents feel as though their Grinch-sized hearts have grown to resemble God’s heart that much more.
A Love Like His
To a certain extent, there's theological validity to this feeling. Love is one of God's communicable attributes, meaning it’s a characteristic of God we can imitate in an imperfect, creaturely way. We aren’t infinite, eternal, or unchanging (some incommunicable attributes). But we can be wise, we can be holy, and we can love. And we aren’t just able to reflect God’s love, we are commanded to reflect it (1 Jn. 3:1, 23). It’s one of the main things that marks us as disciples (Jn. 13:35).
We see what this kind of love looks like in familiar places like 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Parenting has called me to embody the things on this list like never before: patience, kindness, letting go of preferences, fighting irritability and resentment, and enduring with hope. But overall, the nature of God’s love is best reflected when we freely set our love upon another. The clearest expression of love is the simple choice to love. Before anything else, God chose to love us: “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, in love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace” (Eph. 1:4-5).
God freely chose to set his love upon us. No coercion. Just his own desire to love us. Anybody who has truly loved another understands this dynamic, but I experienced it anew when I first held my son. My wife and I adopted, and adoption is a whirlwind. One day it was just the two of us, then we got a phone call, and the next day it was the three of us. In less than 24 hours I both learned I was becoming a dad and then actually became one. And in those first moments of meeting this tiny stranger, we freely chose to set our love upon him. In doing so, we began to understand God’s love just a little bit more.
A Love Unlike Ours
To be honest, though, the overwhelming feeling I had while holding my son in those first moments wasn’t, “Wow, I finally get God’s love,” as if I had truly inched closer to it. Instead, I was struck by the thought that—even though my heart was fuller than ever—my love was so small compared to God’s. The point wasn’t that I was growing closer to God’s standard, but that his standard grew clearer—not by comparison, but by contrast. Like a traveler approaching a far-off mountain, the closer I got to God’s love, the more majestic and untamable it became.
I wasn’t struck by how much more my heart reflected God’s love, but rather how truly set apart God’s love is. My own experience of fatherly love shot my understanding of God’s love into the stratosphere. What sets God’s love apart? Not only that it’s set upon us from the foundation of the world, but that it’s settled for us.
God’s love is unchanging. Even at my best, the love I have for my wife and son will always be imperfect and in flux. My love is fickle, but God’s is constant. Scripture routinely displays God as one whose love is “freely chosen and firmly fixed.” “‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the LORD, who has compassion on you” (Isa. 54:10; cf. Lam. 3:22-23; Jer. 31:2-3).
We rarely give God the credit he deserves on this front. So often we live as though God merely tolerates us. It’s hard to practically believe that God’s love is real, but the Cross assures us of the reality of God’s free, unchanging love. It’s the clearest display of not only Christ’s love for us, but also God’s (Ro. 5:8). Do you want to truly understand God’s love? Don’t look to the general love between parents and children. Consider instead the love that moved the Father to give up his only, beloved son for a sinful world (Jn. 3:16). Look to the Cross and see that—as our father—God truly, freely, and unchangeably loves his children for the sake of his son (1 Jn. 4:9-10).
Footnotes
J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 144.
