How Do I Know that GOD
Loves Me?
(Grace Note #102)
By Gary L. Clendenon, January, 2024
The other day, a friend of mine
asked me a really
good question: “How do you know that God Loves you?” He said he
wanted me to answer without citing outside sources—just from my
heart and mind. This is my best effort to answer that question:
Growing up Christian, I was often told the Bible taught that GOD
loved me. So, intellectually, I accepted that teaching. All my
life, I have never had any reason to doubt that there is an
all-powerful, everywhere-present, all-knowing God. It is the only
rational explanation I could and continue to find for all that amazes
me about our bodies, our lives, nature, our planet, and our
universe—intertwined, interdependent systems everywhere all
seemingly created somehow to work together in harmony. To me, it
would be irrational to not believe there is some kind of Superior
Intelligent Being that created all this. In my opinion, based on
logical thinking, the theory of Evolution requires as much Faith, if
not more, to believe in than the theory of Divine
Creation.
So, naturally, with that in mind, as a young man, regarding GOD’s
Love for me, I chose the then popular mental attitude amongst
Christians: “GOD said it. I believe it. That settles it for me.”
In other words, since I believed in GOD, and His Word the Bible said
that GOD loved me, then whether I felt that Love or not, did not
necessarily make it untrue. Just because I didn’t feel it, didn’t
mean it was not true. Since I believed GOD was perfect,
then—logically—the problem had to be on my end, not GOD’s.
However, as you well know, life is more than mind. My heart and
spirit experience life on a different plane than mental certainties.
My daily experience is a variety of positive and negative experiences
and emotions. On that level, to be fully honest, I have struggled
off and on for many, many years with the idea that GOD
loves me—never mind feeling that Love. I often felt
like the little girl with the flower: “He loves me. He loves me
not….”—never knowing until the end what answer I would get!
In my beginning years, I was raised in a Christian culture that
focused on Pharisaical perfection—seeking God’s approval through
fear and shame-based acts of appeasement. “You’ve got to do
right” one popular song said. This mindset naturally led to
shame-based judgments of myself and others who weren’t measuring up
to the standard of perfection. So, if I couldn’t “do right”, I
had to at least look like I was doing right. I learned to pretend
with the best of them. I was good at it and even won awards for my
“goodness”. But, pretending is hard work. Have you ever tried
to be perfect? IT’S EXHAUSTING!
By the age of 40, through various extremely-painful, life-altering
experiences, my life had crashed and burned. I ended up in a
treatment center for those who, like me, who had hit bottom. During
the following month, I learned that full honesty and vulnerability
were my keys to living a good life—not pretending to be someone I’m
not. I was an absolute fool for thinking I could fool GOD anyway
(What an absolutely absurd way of thinking! LOL). I then learned the
beginning sparks of the idea that GOD could love and
accept me “just as I am”.
A few years later the sparks of that flame were fanned in an enormous
way by a weekend seminar I attended called “Foundations for
Tomorrow”. It was in this seminar that I FELT—as I had never
felt before—completely loved and accepted by GOD. The message
embedded in my brain, but never really connected to my heart until
that magical seminar was felt by my heart and soul: “I was
fully Loved and Accepted by GOD!” (1)
So, ironically, it turned out that being able to feel fully
loved by GOD in my heart could not fully happen until my head was in
a space of awareness that could resonate with that idea as true. I
was holding onto beliefs that were incompatible with a belief in
GOD’s Love. Once I got my head understanding of “who GOD is”
straightened out, only then could my heart and mind align—confirming
the Truth I had been told and taught all my life: “God is Love.”
I have found the Universal Truth “Hindsight is 20/20” to
be very true in my experience. And now, looking back on what I know
and feel now, it is easier to see the moments of experience in my
life that were attempts by GOD to reach me with that Love. Now,
having a better glimpse and understanding of what GOD’s Love looks
like and feels like, I can go back and connect to those key, special
moments throughout my life where I saw or felt a glimpse of GOD’s
Love. These moments, one author calls them “God-winks”,
seem few and far between, but each one was, and now is, a treasure to
me—a treasure that gave me just the amount of Hope that I needed to
not give up, and the Courage to go on until that next special
glimpse. I will now share an overview of some of these special
glimpses. (2)
1. NATURE: All my life I have experienced the beauty, awe, and
majesty of Nature: cumulus clouds, mountain peaks, amazing snow,
living forests, symmetrical trees, green grass, fragrant flowers,
winding rivers, incomprehensible oceans, beautiful beaches,
color-popping sunsets, and the black, night sky filled with
uncountable stars and planets. I’m often left in my Nature
experiences with the whole-body message that “It all must be
true”. There is a God and that God is showing love to me by
saying, “I made all this for you!” (3)
2. MUSIC: A second way I have experienced glimpses of GOD’s
Love is through the power of music to touch my heart. There’s
something magical about music that can make it go straight to the
Heart, and for this reason, I have always treasured the way I feel
when hearing and feeling the messages of different songs. Naturally,
growing up Christian, there were a lot of songs that spoke to my
heart of GOD’s Love, but in an age of way-too-many seemingly old,
stale, hymns what, I believe, saved my Christian experience was a
singing group called “The Heritage Singers”. It was in their
songs that I most felt the Love of GOD shining through, reassuring me
of His Love and care for me. (4)
Although I couldn’t quite make sense of it at the time—because
non-Christian music was thought to be evil, I also experienced a
strong heart connection to many popular songs of my growing up days.
I now understand that since GOD’s Love is Universal and cannot be
contained in Churches only, it can show up anywhere—even in a “rock
song”! I have, as I’m sure you no doubt have also, experienced
this with many non-Christian songs. My life’s theme song is by a
rock group called “Kansas”. It’s called “Carry on My Wayward
Son”, but when I sing it, I sing “Gary, you’re my wayward
son. They’ll be peace when you are done.” Another one of my
all-time non-Christian favorite songs that speaks to me of GOD’s
Love is: “Leader of the Band” by Dan Fogelberg. (5)
3. MIRACLES: From time to
time throughout my life, I have experienced unexplainable
miracles. These are moments when it was very clear to me that GOD
showed Love to me by directly intervening in my life. In the same
way that GOD works in the Bible—waiting until the last possible
moment when there is no other way of escape or rescue, GOD has shown
up consistently just like that in my life. It seems that GOD wants
it to be very clear and without any doubt that it was Him—and no
other—that came through for me.
That makes sense, though, doesn’t it? Given our human tendency to
forget—or explain away—unusual circumstances, it has to be a
REALLY BIG DEAL to help us see that it was something
Supernatural. When GOD does this kind of miracle for me, I feel
strongly aware and deeply cognizant of His Love for me. When I am
tempted to doubt GOD’s Love for me, I can bring to memory these
miracles and feel reminded of their message to me. (6)
4. PEOPLE: When it comes to Love, one would think that this
would be the #1 way of seeing GOD’s Love, but, in my experience,
people are very confusing! The ones who are supposed to Love us are
also the ones who often hurt us most. And yet, in spite of all that
hurt and confusion, I have seen down through the years of my life,
glimpses of GOD’s Love—shown to me directly by people: Family,
Friends, and even Strangers. Because these glimpses are often
unexpected and seem unselfishly motivated, I choose to receive these
acts of kindness and Love from other people as tiny glimpses of GOD’s
Unlimited and Unconditional, Always-Faithful Love.
Unselfishness is a characteristic of the kind of Love GOD gives, so
since we live in an almost-always-selfish world, these acts of
unselfishness stand out strongly to me as GOD-inspired, and therefore
are clear signs to me of GOD’s Love. These acts of Love speak to
me of a glimpse of what a world without sin and selfishness would
look and feel like—probably all the time! They help me believe in
GOD’s Love during those challenging times when I’m not
seeing it or feeling it.
5. PETS: When I was a child, we had several pet cats. I loved
them deeply. As I held them, snuggled them, petted them, and heard
their joyful purr in response, I felt loved in a way that I had never
felt with any human. Because this was outside of human love, it
suggested to me that it could be true that there was a higher love
than human love and this GOD who said He loved me could love me like
a cat loves me—and because He’s perfect, even more and better!
(7)
6. FREEDOM: By nature, I am a man who is wired with a VERY
strong desire for and belief in Freedom. The fact that GOD believes
in Freedom, also, is a HUGE evidence to me of GOD’s Love. I have
said it this way: GOD has a poster on His wall that says, “If
you love someone, set them free. If they come back to you, they’re
yours. If they don’t, it wasn’t mean to be.” (8)
At a great risk to Himself, GOD honors the Free Will of all His
creations.
We’ve seen what happens when GOD’s created beings freely choose
to go their own way—without GOD. The daily disaster and
devastation of the news testify to the wreck created beings make when
we reject GOD’s Love. Free Will is VERY messy, but, at it’s
heart, it’s rooted in pure Love. That, for me, I find very
reassuring and affirming of my individuality. Or, to be more “on
topic”, I feel Loved by GOD when I know GOD honors my Free Will.
7. PARENTHOOD: When
I became a parent, something broke inside of me and I experienced
something I had never experienced before. I felt a love for my child
that I had never felt for anyone or anything before. If you are a
parent, you will understand; if not, you won’t, nor can’t, but
I’m sure you’ve at least heard of or witnessed this undeniable
truth. We parents love our children—almost excessively—and will
do anything, even up to sacrificing our own lives—for them.
This breakthrough in my heart also created a breakthrough in my
understanding of GOD’s Love for me. Knowing how much I love my
children, and what I would be willing to do for them, and knowing
also how broken, imperfect, and conditional my own love was, gave me
a new understanding of how much GOD, “Our Father in Heaven”—the
Perfect Father—could Love me!! “He Loves me! GOD Loves me!!"
So, Friend, these are the evidences
I have and hold on to that show me and remind me that GOD undeniably
Loves me. Because I know GOD Loves me, I am also quite convinced
that GOD Loves you and, even more than that,
as “Papa” GOD
says in The Shack book and movie:
I am especially fond
of you.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Here is the website for this amazing seminar which I highly
recommend! https://foundations1.com/
2. For more on “Godwinks”, I highly recommend this book:
https://www.amazon.com/When-God-Winks-Coincidence-Godwink/dp/0743467078
3. Because it resonates with my
heart as true, I love how Ellen G. White states this idea: “God
is love” is written upon every opening bud, upon every spire of
springing grass (Steps
to Christ, p. 10).
This quote inspired me to write the linked poem:
https://notesfromthegc.blogspot.com/2024/01/surrounded-poem.html
4. The Heritage Singers are still around:
https://www.youtube.com/@HeritageSingers
5. I even rewrote the song to make the message more clear to others:
https://notesfromthegc.blogspot.com/2024/01/leader-of-band-song-i-re-wrote.html
6. For one of my most recent miracles, go here:
https://notesfromthegc.blogspot.com/2024/01/god-stole-my-car.html
7. One of the coolest songs I have EVER heard connecting GOD’s Love
and a pet’s love can be heard here:
https://youtu.be/H17edn_RZoY?si=2A5MAW2KyvaqfLQE
8. This is from “Gary-ism #24”: For more Gary-isms, go here:
https://notesfromthegc.blogspot.com/2022/01/gary-isms.html
