God's Love is Like...

God's Love is Like...

A Spider





(I can picture my wife cringing already)



Yes, God's love is like a spider. How? Spiders surprise us. They show up in unexpected places, usually eliciting some sort of reaction from us. Often we recoil, surprised at the presence of this small arachnid, wondering how it arrived in this place to dwell with us.

God's love does the same thing. It shows up in unexpected places. It's what made Jesus so hard for the Pharisees to understand; they kept thinking he would spend all his time in the temple rather than going out and eating with sinners. God's love does the same thing today, too. God's love is in the food banks and the battered women's shelters. God's love resides in the grandest mansion and underneath the freeway overpass. God's love shows up, sneaking in through the cracks in our lives to reveal itself in unlikely ways.

Often God's love makes us uncomfortable, just like spiders do. God calls us to interact with those who are different than us. God's love pushes us to understand this world through a different lens than we are used to viewing life through. God wants us to see all of this world as wrapped in love, rather than just the parts that make us happy. God loves the drug addict and the corrupt millionaire, and often we get all squeamish trying to figure out how to love this world like God does.

Spiders come in every shape and size, just like God's love. You can never predict what it will look like, except for the fact that it will probably amaze you when we catch even a glimpse of true Christian love.

See--that wasn't so bad!