You Are Loved
Maybe you came here with questions. Maybe you came here hurting. Maybe you're not sure why you came. Before any answers, before any arguments, there's something you need to know: God knows you completely, and he loves you anyway. Not the cleaned-up version of you. The real you.
You are fully known
God isn't guessing about you. He knows your thoughts before you speak them, every place you've been, and every place you've hidden. And knowing all of it, he still calls you his.
“You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.”
Psalm 139:1-16
You were never forgotten
Even when it felt like no one noticed, God did. He says a mother might forget her own child, but he will never forget you.
“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”
Isaiah 49:15-16
He loved you first
God didn't wait for you to get your life together. He moved toward you at your worst. The cross is the proof.
“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8
He delights in you
It may be hard to imagine, but the God of the universe doesn't just tolerate you. He rejoices over you.
“He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Zephaniah 3:17
He wants you
God isn't a thumbs-up, thumbs-down God, picking some people and turning others away. He is not willing that anyone should perish, not even the people who have run the farthest from him. Jesus once looked over a city that had rejected him and wept: "How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing" (Matthew 23:37). He wanted them. He wants you. The door is open, and the choice is yours.
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
2 Peter 3:9
Why do we run?
Ever since the first man and woman hid among the trees, people have been running from God: through busyness, through arguments, through pretending we're fine, through pain we don't want to look at. Often we don't even realize we're doing it.
But notice what God did in that garden. He didn't wait for them to come out. He came looking: "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9). He's still asking. Not to shame you, but to bring you home.
Wherever you are right now, you can stop running. "Where can I flee from your presence?" asked the psalmist (Psalm 139:7). The answer is nowhere, and that's good news. He's already there.
You don't have to have it all figured out. You just have to be willing to turn toward him.