God's Loyal Love

Who is God? What is His character? Those are big questions! I have been wrestling with these questions all my life. Is God good? Why does He allow suffering? Does He love me? Is He faithful even when I am faithless? 

I remember once while in college that I got so fed up agonizing over these questions that I decided I would follow the example of my namesake and wrestle with God. I took my guitar and my Bible, and I walked out to a lonely place on campus. I started with Genesis 32 and Jacob’s epic wrestling match with God, but it wasn’t long before I found myself in 2 Cor 12:9-10, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” In reading those words, I became overwhelmed with the amazing truth that God was working not in spite of my weaknesses, doubts, and fears, but through them for His glory and my good. When I was weak, His strength was all the more powerfully evident. 

Who is God? That day in college I was reminded, whether I knew it then or not, of God’s hesed. Hesed is an interesting word that the Old Testament uses to describe God’s work in the world. The word could be translated as kindness or favor, but in many uses it’s translated as loyalty—a loyalty based on the covenant promises that God made with His people. Hesed is God’s loyal love. When thinking about God’s character, have you ever thought about hesed, that God is loyal to you? The word shows up over 200 times in the Old Testament with this meaning. 

It’s a central theme to the little book of Ruth, which follows the tragedies and triumphs of two widows in ancient Israel. What’s so interesting about the use of hesed in Ruth is that the different actors of the story all become instruments of its application in the lives of others. Ruth, a foreigner to Israel, is praised for her hesed–loyal love–to Naomi, her mother-in-law who faced tragedy after tragedy in losing her husband and both her sons. She felt abandoned by God Himself, but not by Ruth. Then, Naomi becomes an avenue of hesed as she schemes to set up Ruth with the wealthy landowner, Boaz, who himself becomes an avenue of hesed as he provides for the widows and eventually marries Ruth. The absence of God speaking or performing miracles in the Book of Ruth is startling, but if you read between the lines, you begin to see how God was working not in spite of His people, but through them to display His loyal love.

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t always know why God allows suffering or why He doesn’t take away specific pains or trials. But what I do know is that God is overflowing with loyal love. This aspect of God’s amazing love is really a combination of two of God’s central character traits: love and faithfulness. Does He love you? Yes! Is hH faithful when you are faithless? Yes! Read between the lines of your life and I assure you that you will see that God is at work bringing together the happy “accidents” of the everyday for His glory and your good. He even wants to use you as an avenue of His loyal love in the lives of others, just like He used Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz. He wants to use your very weaknesses to display His grace and power! Whatever you may be going through, be encouraged that God is with you and that God loves you. More than that, no matter how weak, or distracted, or busy you may feel, God longs to use you to display His loyal love. Who is God? God is faithful. God is love. God is loyal to you.