Happy February friends! 

February is one of my favorite months and I think it’s because it’s special (Leap Year is fun when it happens), the Superbowl typically takes place in February AND it’s love month – the month we celebrate Valentine’s Day. I love Valentine’s Day because I love, love. But my favorite part about Valentine’s Day or even Galentine’s Day (February 13th) isn’t the counterfeit loves that try to steal my attention and affection – my favorite part is that love points to God. And we all know God’s love is my absolute favorite topic to share about. So, in honor of love month and my favorite topic, I’m going to share a blog post every Monday this month. 

I’ve written and shared about God’s love many times and the reason I can’t get enough of it is because it’s unending. We’ll never hit the depths of God’s love for us. And unfortunately, we’ll probably never fully grasp the fullness of that love either. At least not in this “now and not yet” season in which we’re living. So until God’s love ceases to continually be a mystery to me, I’ll write about it and how it daily changes my life.

Recently I read Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund which is a book that outlines God’s heart for humanity. It’s full of wisdom, but one of the ideas that’s been sitting with me is the argument that, “Our natural intuition can only give us a God like us.” It takes far more for us to see God as He truly is, rather than what our perceptions tell us. 

This isn’t a particularly profound thought, you hear it all the time when pastors explain that God is a good father, and always add a caveat for those of us who had absent or abusive fathers. But what if it’s more than that caveat? 

In my Bible reading, I was camped in Exodus for the last few weeks and I read Exodus 34:6-7,

Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness, maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.”

When I read those words, I was caught off guard. Why? Because I’m not sure I’ve ever met a human who’s slow to anger and rich in love.

Now I know what you’re thinking, you can think of a handful of people who are “slow to anger” and I’m way off. But let’s dive a little deeper. 

On the base surface, when people think of anger, they probably think of loud outbursts and so count themselves out. But everyone gets angry, we just express it differently. So while you may know someone who doesn’t burst out in anger often and yell, or perhaps, you yourself don’t express anger that way, we all express it in some way and I’d venture, we all are fairly quick to that emotion. 

I know this because I married Adrian. Adrian is generally a calm man (just don’t get him excited about sports or board games or Brandon Sanderson). He’s never raised his voice at me and I’m not sure he’s capable of really being “typically” angry at all. But he very quickly gets frustrated, apathetic, annoyed, and can fall into boredom. But those things aren’t anger, Becca. No, not explicitly, but they do all fall under the anger emotion on a typical emotion wheel. So for argument’s sake, we’re including them.

And I think we can all agree that while we may not all be prone to quick bursts of anger and shouting, we struggle with being slow to…

• Being offended

  • Insulted

  • Mocked 

• Indignant

  • Violated

  • Outraged

• Dismayed

  • Let Down

  • Betrayed

• Bitter

  • Resentful

  • Jealous

• Frustrated

  • Annoyed

  • Infuriated

• Aggressive

  • Hostile

  • Belligerent

• Harassed

  • Persecuted

  • Provoked

• Bored

  • Indifferent

  • Apathetic

• Rushed

  • Pushed

  • Pressured

Even the best fathers, I’m sure, were also quite quick to some of those emotions. BUT, and here’s where I think our perception of God needs to grow, God is slow to all of these things.

And instead of anger or whatever sub-emotion suits you best, God is rich in love. Which means, God’s automatic response to us offending Him, letting Him down, being apathetic about Him, or even hostile toward Him, is love. And this shouldn’t really shock us. But I think it merits remembering.

1 John tells us that God is love. It’s His primary nature. Love. And if that’s not mind-blowing to you, I’d love to have a discussion as to why, because it literally blows my freaking mind. It’s so opposite of my nature and even that of those who love me the most and yet it’s just who God is. Human being’s natural inclination is never to love another more than themselves and yet that’s God’s natural state. 

It’s this richness of love that I celebrate in February and every day of the year. And it’s this love that I hope the Spirit pours out on you because unless we experience it, we’ll never know it tangibly and it’s that tangible outpouring that changes our lives.