What’s the Colour of Love?

If you had a father who says he loves you so much and that father was a billionaire…would you ever feel your dreams and desires won’t be achieved? 

Now, don’t be in a hurry to answer that question. Think about it, deeply. 

Because…yes, you might have that feeling.

Why?

What you see as the colour of love might be totally different from what your father sees as the colour of love. For you, love might be Green like life and growth, and every other colours might mean nothing to you. Your father, on the other hand, might think love is Red and only Red, like sacrifice. And while you and your father are seeing love as Green and Red, some other person might say love is white and blue…and the person’s argument might be, “Love is pure as white and spreads wide like the blue sky.”

Recently, I was watching a show on a Christian television network, and the hosts of the show (a husband and wife) had a friendly argument about the colours of their jacket and shirt. The husband said his wife was wearing a blue jacket, while he was in a green shirt. The wife, however, thinks she was the one in green and her husband was in blue. It was very funny and quite interesting, watching them argue about the colours of their jacket and shirt. My mind couldn’t help but remember this argument as I thought about this post. Some times, love is like that. What someone else calls “love” might be an outrageous definition of love for you. 

So again, yes. You might have a billionaire for a father and that father might love you recklessly, or thinks he does, and yet you don’t feel loved. His definition of love might be different from yours. The way he expresses his love might be hurtful to you. And until you two get to understand each other, what your father calls love might be hatred to you. 

And it’s funny to think that we can have this same misunderstanding with our Heavenly Father 

When God says He loves us, we have to understand that He has His definition of love, and His definition might be entirely different from what we think love is. This can keep us in sadness and pain and leave us with resentment towards God. If we do not breach the gap, if our definition of love do not line up with God’s definition, what we assume to be a display of love will never be what we’ll get from God. 

And God isn’t going to change for us. He is THE PERFECTION, and we’re never ever going to be anything close to perfection while we still have this dust clothing called flesh. God won’t come down to our distorted version of love, a version that was birthed by the cultures of this decaying world. It is on us to meet Him where He is. 

So, from God’s perspective, what’s Love?

The passion of Jesus Christ (His betrayal, persecution, crucifixion, death, burial and ultimately His resurrection) says a whole lot about how God sees love. Also, through stories like: Hosea and Gomer (Hosea 1,2&3), the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), the lost sheep (Matthew 18:12-14, Luke 15 :3-7), the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10), and the Good Shepherd (John 10:1-18), we see the way God loves us. We see that He loves us unconditionally, completely and forever. We see how He puts us first and treats us with so much care and attention.

But we should know, God’s love also runs through other stories in the Bible. God’s love is seen in the story of Joseph, even if Joseph had to go through betrayal, slavery, and the prison before he became a Prime Minister in Egypt. God’s love is all over the story of David. But, though anointed king, David didn’t have access to the throne for a long time. He had to fight battles, be on the run, and even faced really deadly situations before he had access to the throne. Then there’s the story of Esther. A young woman who found herself in the palace of the great Persian kingdom, and had to face a life or death confrontation because that’s exactly where God wants her to be. God’s love is in her story too. What about the Apostles and the early church? Yes, they were overwhelmed by the love of God even through their persecutions, trials…and deaths. 

God’s love isn’t just about all He has given us, freely. His Love is also about: the persons He’ll have us become and all He’ll have us go through on our journey of “becoming”, the places He’ll have us be in, and the things He’ll have us face and do…whether we find them pleasurable or not. 

The love of God is too massive and way beyond our comprehension but we can always trust it is for our good. Just when you think you’re so overwhelmed by it…it gets better. It is so high, we can never get over it. It is too wide, we can never get around it. It is so deep, we can never get under it. Love isn’t an attribute God has. God is Love. 

But why we can never understand the massiveness and greatness of this Love…it is amazing how the simple things in life show us how God loves us

The night before I started writing this post, I had an interesting encounter with a baby…a year and few months old baby. I was coming back from an errand. It was few minutes past seven in the evening. The lights were out and my street was almost 82% overshadowed by darkness. It was lonely that evening. I could tell people were in their fenced houses because I could hear voices and noises as I walked, but I was the only one walking on the street, or so I thought.

As I walked, I gradually began to hear a sound that was coming towards me. The sound was familiar. It was the sound of a baby babbling. My first thought was, 

“Wait, what’s going on here?”

As the sound grew closer, I noticed the little baby boy was already walking pass me. I paused to look at for the adult that was with the child, but there was none. So, I walked back to the child and stood in front of him. He stopped, and that gave me an opportunity to really look at him. After a short stare at him, I was relieved. He was the child of a neighbour.

“Where is your mummy?” I asked the little lad. 

Of course, I wasn’t expecting a response. I just smiled, picked him up and carried him along, while wondering why he was out in the dark…all by himself. When the little lad noticed I had interrupted his own journey, he started crying. I stopped, looked at him and wondered why he was crying and then he stopped crying. When I continued the journey home, he started crying again. When he started crying again, for a reason I can’t explain (it just came off the top of my head), I decided to walk backwards, towards the direction he was headed before I interrupted his journey, and to my surprise he was quiet. And when I tried walking us back home, he started crying yet again.

I needed to get home, so I couldn’t continue the back and forth game. I ignored his tears and struggle to get down. I just continued the journey home. Soon I met his aunt standing in front of her house with her kids. 

“I saw him over there.” I explained, as I handed him over to his aunt 

As expected, his aunt was very shocked. She couldn’t say much but the fear that suddenly wrapped all over her was very obvious and visible, even in the dark. After a brief conversation with her, I discovered the father of the boy had left him in her care, and she didn’t know when he left the company of other kids to find his dad, by himself…in the dark and almost lonely street. 

Let’s zoom into the world of this little lad for a minute 

He wanted his dad…such a lovely desire. He knew where his father headed…such an observant little fellow. He decided to go after his father…now, that’s an “I can do it” attitude. He made his move when no one was watching…smart move. He saw how dark and lonely the street was, but he sauntered into it anyways…now that’s really bold and completely courageous for a year old.

If we’re on the side of truth…and also limiting our thoughts and logic to that of a year old, then there’s nothing wrong with what this child did. He, in fact, should be celebrated. In his little world, he is a Hero. And as far as his little understanding was concern, he didn’t do anything wrong. He couldn’t even understand why I was so unreasonable to interrupt his journey. If I wanted to help out, why not carry him towards the direction he was headed. Why take him back? After his long effort? How unreasonable of me! 

Now, let’s zoom right out

Beyond the little world of this little lad, every adult knows and understands he was in great danger. I knew he was, so his tears and fight didn’t mean anything to me. His aunt was scared because she also knew it was dangerous for him to be out there, all by himself. The street had some undeveloped plots of land, with grasses. There are also some uncompleted buildings. We’ve had robbery, shooting and stabbing in recent times. This child didn’t know all of this…and if an adult who sees the bigger picture and knows better tries to, carefully, explain all of these to this child, he will never understand. 

We love him. We wanted to protect him. He cried out so loud. He fought us so hard. He felt we didn’t care about his need. But we love him. All we wanted was to protect him.

With God, we’re like this little lad

We don’t always get want we want…and that can make us angry and bitter towards God. To us, what we want is the obvious reasonable thing for God to do. We can’t understand why God will want to withhold something so “obviously reasonable” from us. But, we see only what our little minds can see. We can’t zoom out, because we’re limited. God sits in the heavens and the earth is His footstool. He sees the entire picture. He doesn’t just see the entire picture, He created and controls the entire picture. And if God ever tries to explain the bigger picture to us…guess what? We can’t and can never understand it. Our little mind and little world can never comprehend it. 

Most times, what we call God’s silence is the roaring outpour of His love. What we call pain is only a necessary entrance to the pleasures stored up in His love. What we call His back is the full embrace of His love. 

It doesn’t matter what you feel. The “not loved by God” feeling you’re having is from the pit of hell, no matter the “reasonable facts” there are to back it up. Refuse to settle in your limited knowledge of what God’s love is or should be. Come up to God. You just have to have faith. The Bible did say, in Hebrew 11:6, that we can’t please God without Faith, right?  If you can put it all together, then you’re walking by your sight and human understanding…not faith. God doesn’t want you walking like that (2 Corinthians 5:7). You have to just learn to be okay and satisfied with your limited knowledge…and just R E S T. Rest in God’s ABSOLUTE knowledge and INDESCRIBABLE love. 

And since your Heavenly Father owns it all: the earth, the fullness of the earth, the world, and they that dwell therein (Psalm 24:1) you better believe you can do all things through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:13). Stop thinking the family and cultural background you were born into, the circumstances surrounding your birth, and how you were raised are the factors that will determine the quality of life you’ll have. No, they aren’t, God is. You are God’s child, a fellow heir with Christ Jesus (Romans 8:17). God can’t withhold any good thing from you (Romans 8:32). You’re so Loved by God…completely, unconditionally….forever. Never lose this truth. The devil can never get into a heart that has this truth, deeply, rooted in it. 

P.S If I have to answer the question, “What‘s the colour of Love?” my answer is simple, yet most powerful…Jesus is the colour of love, and He shines in more than  a 100 billion ways. 

My prayer for you and me:

May we know and understand the love of God which surpasses mere knowledge. May we be filled unto all the fullness of God. In Jesus’ name… Amen. 

Get in the gym, and do 

Stay Spiritually Fit.