Things I've Learned From My Three Year Old (3)

Things I’ve Learned from my Three Year Old (3)

Have you ever noticed that the joy of love is ironically paired with suffering. Is it possible to love without also feeling pain? You share your loved one’s burdens. Prolonged separation brings discomfort. Doesn’t this present a dilemma when trying to understand God? If God cannot suffer how does he actually love us? Doesn’t he feel pain when we feel pain? Isn’t that suffering? If God can suffer then how is he God?My three year old has taught me that we learn very early how to turn another’s love for us into a tool for manipulation. When the bedtime story is done and the prayers said he just happens to be extremely, painfully thirsty. Or his bladder is on the verge of bursting with need for relief. He knows I love him enough to care for his needs. It pains me to realize he manipulates my love to satisfy his own desires, being, “I don’t want to go to bed yet”.When Kameron does something careless and brings harm to himself I generally have two reactions: First, I express love for him by asking, “How could you do this to yourself?” Then, I acknowledge my own pain when I silently ask, “How could you do this to me?” God loves us in the first way only. He doesn’t suffer in love because he is perfectly selfless in love.We can’t manipulate God by banging our heads on the floor or by holding our breathe until we turn blue in the face. He, unlike us, is not vulnerable in that way.Oh “to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” Eph. 3:18