Jesus loves me, but does he like me?

Ah, love. We find so, so many ways to confuse ourselves about this vital topic.

We devour sappy, lyrically suspect songs about love. 

We (the royal we, the editorial 'we') purchase loads of fiction stories of love lost and regained. We watch shows with such titles as 'Love Island' or 'the Bachelorette', even though we know the premise has little to do with actual love.

(when I said 'we' watch such shows, I definitely meant more 'you' than 'me).

Still for some of us, 'love' has infuriatingly, maddeningly, wrongly been the premise for some sort of unloving-type control or mis-use of us. Many of us, quite reasonably, have discerned that someone can love us, but not particularly like us. Some of our parents have loved us in ways we feel loved ... and also that we're an annoyance, a burden. Love has been made to feel like some obligation we're owed, but don't really want. "Who needs enemies when you have friends like this?"

So, when we hear that God is love ... that God 'loves' you, and 'loves' me ... we can (understandably) react with wary confusion. 

"So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." -1 John 4:16

What is that sort of love from God? Is it the sort of love that includes some side orders of anxiety, control, hectoring, manipulation? Is this is a love that gives the silent treatment if I say the wrong thing the wrong way, or don't text back in a reasonable amount of time?

Thankfully, no.

There's a sort of love that delights with someone or something just because it is. Just because it exists. There's a sort of love that because it loves, it also likes/delights in/finds funny/genuinely enjoys/appreciates being around.

You're not a rehab project to our Lord. You're not an investment of under-realized gains. He's not tapping his foot impatiently. He doesn't get mad when you spill the cup of water on the dinner table. When we look at our lives and see scattered debris of minimal progress here and there, we can't presume that Jesus sees us this way too.

"The Lord is merciful and gracious."