Have you ever thought about God's faithfulness? I mean really thought about the incredibility of it. Not just His integrity - His constancy in answering prayers and being quick to fulfill promises. I mean His actual faithfulness to us in relationship. His consistent returning to us and wooing us even when we have shown a faithlessness to Him, or at the very best a lack of thought and response towards Him as He cares for us and showers us with love and blessings.

I had a moment in my own life recently where I felt that my faithfulness, borne out of great love, was answered with harshness. Granted, it was almost certainly thoughtlessly done, and not reflective of the level of relationship that is there, but isn't that what we often do to God? Words thoughtlessly spoken and actions thoughtlessly executed. It overwhelms me to think of how magnanimous God is that He continually lays these aside and chooses to love us with abandon and purity. When someone answers my love with harshness, my own humanness (and likely some brokenness, too) gets in the way and I want to protect myself and say, "Oh that's how you really feel about me? Well, so much for you, then!" It's unbelievable that God, since the creation of mankind, has always chosen love.

In Genesis, when the world was all nutty in the time of Noah, it says that "The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain." Genesis 6:6) Ouch. I can't imagine that today is any different, with how many of us - even Believers - are often so faithless in our thoughts and love for God. But even with that conviction, I am filled with an overwhelming understanding of God's love and faithfulness for me. I have read the book of Hosea many times. I have heard the story of God's constant returning to us and accepting us again. What I think I was missing was the incredible personal investment God puts in to call us back into relationship with Him again and again. Is He hurt? Yes. Does He get angry? Yes, rightly so. But does He allow this to affect the purity of His love for us? Never.

It is virtually inconceivable to my mind.

But that is the kind of faithfulness that I want to have for my friends. For my family. Even for those I don't know well or the strangers on the street, who need salvation and love and healing as much as any of the rest of us. And I find this last extremely difficult, because regardless of how much it hurts even when they do it, I have no real personal investment in these people if they choose to reject me, and it is easier to simply write them off, in a sense. It is, however, the thoughtless rejection of friends and family that tends to be the most difficult because of the pain it can cause and the breaking of the relationship that has become or is thought to be a known and safe place. How much more does a Creator feel the pain and frustration of the thoughtless (let alone the calculated) rejection of His treasured creation?

And yet He chooses faithfulness every time.

He is indeed a mighty, mighty God.