God’s love is pretty hard to wrap my mind around.

It’s so big–so vast–that I have a hard time picturing it sometimes. I grew up in the church. I remember a moment when I was a kid, probably about four or five, when I first met Jesus and accepted him into my life. My family has gone to church almost every Sunday of my life, and if we didn’t, we made sure to watch it online.

I was steeped, like a tea bag forgotten in a cup on the counter, in the same message.

God loves you. God loves you. God loves you.

It was said so often, and in contrast to so many painful experiences that seemed to directly contradict it, that by the time I was ten, I didn’t believe it. Not really.

But just because I didn’t feel God’s love, or believe that it applied to me, doesn’t make it not true. There’s a reason that message was said so often. Because it’s the truth. God does love you…

So how do we start believing it?

As a teenager, I was pretty sure I was going to hell. Not because I didn’t believe in God—I did. But because I figured I was so messed up, that I was so broken and so shattered, that the only place I really truly belonged was eternal suffering. I remember being fifteen, lying awake at night, and trying to picture a God that would want to spend the rest of eternity with me. I didn’t even want to spend the rest of my life with myself. How could God?

On the outside, I was all smiles. If you’d asked me if I thought God loved me, my answer would have been the perfect church answer. “Of course he does.”

Oftentimes, people say things not because they believe them, but because they desperately want to believe them.

But if you’d asked if I thought God liked me? If God liked who I was, if God wanted to hear my thoughts, my opinions…if God liked my jokes, or took an interest in the things that I liked?

I don’t know how I would have answered. Because the truth was, to me, love was something that meant someone would put up with you. It meant that they’d sacrifice for you if they needed to, and…only if they needed to. But liking someone? That meant you enjoyed being around them. It meant you wanted to be around them.

Eventually, I got to the point where I wanted to know more about God’s love. I was eighteen and desperate. I’d spent most of my life feeling empty on the inside, feeling rejected and dumb. I finally worked up the courage to ask God something I never had before.

I knelt on the ground, home alone, my knees aching on the tile floor, and closed my eyes.

“Please,” I whispered. “I can’t keep living like this, God, please. I need you to fix me.”

I’d prayed the same thing many times before, but this time my heart was in a different place. This time, I was willing to let him in. This time, I was committed to the process, whatever that process may be. I wasn’t asking for a quick snap of the fingers, and then suddenly, I was fine. I was asking for a real change.

Holy Spirit knew exactly what I needed and translated it to this: Show me what your love means, and show me how to accept it.

And that is when things changed.

It starts with asking…

It didn’t change in a single moment. It didn’t even change in a few months. God spent the next few years (and he’s still doing this, by the way) proving to me so many different ways that he loves me.

I learned that he likes my laugh. That he wants me to be part of the stories I write—even when I think that literally anyone else could write it better than me. He enjoys how I care about others. He likes giggling with me over new discoveries or funny memories with my friends.

He likes me. He enjoys spending time with me. He wants me.

That’s what God’s love is.

Do you know God’s love like that? Or do “love” and “like” feel different to you?

---

A huge part of defeating the lies is by affirming the truth. Get personal with it. Get deep. Try out this free 21-day devotional to take that first step in accepting God’s love!