What I Learned from Reading Crazy Love.

So I finally finished "Crazy Love" yesterday.

And now I'm sort of left with the question, "What happens next?"

There is no doubt that this book has convicted me profoundly; probably more so than any book that I've ever read. But I'd just really hate to finish this book, walk away, and then do nothing. After all, the entire point of the book (to me, at least) is that our love for the God who has saved us should prompt us to take action and live the true Christian life; a life that goes far above and beyond the call in its desire to love, give, and serve.

As I read chapter 9 and the stories of people who did or are doing incredible things to further the kingdom of God, I left feeling really overwhelmed on a few fronts. Number one, I just can't imagine a life like that. It's scary, and even to me, a person who believes we need to trust and give God all we have and are, seems pretty crazy. But it also left me feeling overwhelmed in the sense that I just felt like I could never do this. "There's just no way this can happen," I continued to say in my heart. I was defeating myself before I even began.

And that's when I believe that the Holy Spirit spoke to me and reminded me that that's the point. I can't do it. Only He can. I believe that as a Christian, God is going to continue transforming me and changing my life. He has opened my eyes to many of the ways in which I am failing him through this selfish, self-centered, self-serving faith that I am living. Now He calls me to do something about it, trusting that along the journey, He is going to mold and shape me and change my heart, mind, and lifestyle into being one that gives even more glory and honor to Him.

So how am I going to change? Number one, I'm going to pray that God would help me to love Him. That was a prayer mentioned by Francis at some point in the book, and it's one that I've started praying since. And though I've only been doing that about a week or so, I believe that I'm already seeing some fruit from that and that I'm seeing the beginnings of God's transformation on my heart, and that excites me. God tells us that without love, our service means nothing, so it all has to start here.

Secondly, I'm praying for God to have all of me, and to use me and spend me for His purposes, whatever that means. If I'm brutally honest with myself, I think that I sort of fall into that category of people Francis talks about who are honestly satisfied with the amount of God they already have... God occupies a segment of our lives so that we can claim to be Christ-followers and just go about living life. I don't want to be that person. In the most loving way possible, while I believe those people are certainly loved and saved by God, I think that is a terrible substitute for the true Christian life. As much as it scares me to pray for God to have all of me, I'm going to pray it anyway and see what happens. To do anything less wouldn't be living up to the fullest extent of the plan that God has laid out for me.

I'm also going to make a strong commitment to give more. I already tithe 10%, but I am very convicted that I need to be giving more than that (just a personal conviction; please don't think I'm saying everyone has to do this), embodying the generosity that God has shown to me in Christ. So I've decided that each month, in addition to my church offering, I'm going to offer up an extra portion of my income to help the poor, the oppressed, the sick, and the hungry across the earth. Does that make sense given my lack of income right now? No. Does it scare me? You bet. But God does ask us to test Him in this matter, and I, for one, am anxious to see how He provides.

I know I need to serve somewhere, but I'm not really sure where my heart lies yet. Maybe in homeless ministry? Maybe helping single parents and/or broken families? Maybe helping out those suffering from addiction? There's a lady at our church who is actively involved in ministry to incarcerated individuals and their families... I'm sort of intrigued about that as well. This is what scares me the most, because in a lot of ways I think I treasure my time above everything else. But this is part of what I feel all of us as Christians are called to do... to serve and help others in need and distress, regardless of how difficult or uncomfortable it is.

Guys, I need your prayers as I embark on this journey. But I am trusting that God is going to do some amazing things as I continue to let Him lead me, no matter how scary it may seem.

What did "Crazy Love" teach me? It taught me to adopt a model for my life of loving, serving, and giving because that is what God so generously did with us.

wb

P.S.: On a totally unrelated note, our lead pastor at Suncrest (church I am interning at in NW Indiana) preached a really great message on the priority of sex yesterday. However, what really struck me was the opening 7-8 minutes of his message, where he focused on the priority of singles (since people who are both Christians and unmarried hopefully are not having sex), and it was really something that I was touched by and could empathize with. Listen to the August 23 message called "Priority" at http://bit.ly/plFcu.

Crazy Love, Chapter 8: Profile of the Obsessed.

I think that for me, this chapter mostly just solidified themes that I had already been thinking as a result of reading this book. In fact, in a lot of ways, it's simply the content of chapters 5 and 6 rephrased in a different way.

And I think that there are just a few overall things that really stuck out to me in reading.

First off is simply the idea that following Jesus is radical. I think that there are a lot of people (myself included) who would gladly agree with that statement, but do not recognize the incredible impact that it has on their individual lives at all. If Jesus is a radical revolutionary and I am a follower of Jesus, doesn't that necessarily mean that in some way I need to be radical too?

As I read this book (and this chapter in particular), I'm just overwhelmed with this feeling that none of it makes sense. It makes perfect sense in principle, but for a person to live this way is simply puzzling. It makes no sense to us. It certainly makes no sense to the world, and I don't really think it's supposed to. This is a type of lifestyle that is made possible only by the incredible indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

When I was growing up in middle school and high school, I probably heard countless sermons and/or lessons in youth group about living a life that makes people ask the question, "Why?" I've lived a pretty nice little Christian life. But a nice little Christian life isn't the one that makes people ask you why. A big, audacious, seemingly crazy and nonsensical life is the one that does that.

It's really tempting to look at the apostles, at missionaries like Barnabas and/or Silas and think that they simply practiced Christianity to the max. But I have no doubt that other, less esteemed or notable members of the early church did that too. What if the early church wasn't practicing this amazingly dedicated Christianity (though it would certainly be accurate to describe it that way)?

What if that's really the only kind of Christianity?

It sounded cool and trendy and countercultural when just Jesus was radical. When we make a correlation between Jesus and ourselves as followers of Jesus, the words we might use instead are ones like

weird.

challenging.

difficult.

dumb.

not for me.

It's funny how that outlook changes.

Which I think transitions me perfectly into my next observation: following Jesus is hard. I think I talked about this last night, but I want to hammer it home here, too. There's simply no "if's," "and's," or "but's." Following Christ is difficult. It requires surrender of all we have: our time, our talents and abilities, our money and possessions, and our love of comfort and self-interest.

Reading "Crazy Love" has made me realize that as a Christian, I kissed goodbye to an easy life a long time ago. If I want to live a life that truly encompasses all of what God teaches and all of what Christ stood for, I've got to do tough things. I've got to give sacrificially. I have to love people who don't like me and/or would rather have nothing to do with me. I have to purposefully and intentionally engage in relationships with people outside my little social sphere and bring the light of the gospel into their lives.

That is a difficult life, but it is the one that God calls each Christ follower to.

And that brings me to my final point, which is simply that all of this is overwhelming. As I prayed after reading this chapter, I kept coming back to God saying how crazy it feels to even think about living a life like this, and how impossible the task of being transformed into a person who lives like this seems. And that's when I kept coming back to the fact that that is the role of the Holy Spirit.

I've written on here before (and I still believe with all of my heart) that I play a big role in my transformation. God will do and has done everything necessary to allow me to follow Him fully and completely. Yet, I still have to make those choices.

I had to choose to believe.

I had to choose to follow.

I had to choose to trust.

And the moment I make those decisions, God will be there for me in a nanosecond. When I make big decisions, God immediately comes alongside and nurtures me, grows me, and transforms me in a way that I believe only He can.

So when I look at this life and feel overwhelmed, I sort of get the sense that God is saying, "Yeah, that's the point. It's not about what you can do; it's simply about you making the initial choice. When you decide to get started, I'll be there. I'll do all the work that you think is impossible. Heck, that word's not in my vocabulary."

This is a life so big that only God could make it happen, and that's the point.

And as I keep praying for God to help me to love Him truly and completely, the motivation to live a life like this will almost magically appear too. That's incredible.

So God, use all of me for Your glory. Make me obsessed... for You.

Crazy Love, Chapter 7: Your Best Life... Later.

So at church this Sunday during one of our services, I was sitting in my office and I took "Crazy Love" out of my bag and started to read, when one of our worship band members, Beka, came up to me and asked me how I liked the book.

I wish I could've seen my reaction.

I kind of shrugged my shoulders and explained that I know that reading this book is good for me, but dang, it is difficult sometimes. It is so compelling and convicting; I hate it, yet I know that it is the only way for me to experience true spiritual growth.

And this is one of those chapters where Francis Chan just kicks me in the teeth.

Let's start with the simple question: What are you doing right now in your life that requires faith?

When I watched the chapter video to intro this chapter, I was feeling pretty good about myself. After all, I just moved to northwest Indiana a few weeks ago to take a ministry internship position where I know nobody, will be making very little money to support myself, and will be well past the comfort zone of family and friends. I recognize humbly that in many ways, that was nice-sized faith step for me. However, eventually it becomes a little less frightening as you find your way and get your feet under you. Yet, nevertheless, I was really tempted to use this internship as my go-to excuse to avoid any unnecessary conviction.

But if I'm honest, there's not a whole lot of stuff in my life where I'd say I am really just going by faith, giving it all to God. Through my 21 years, I can't really think of too many specific times where I set my own fears aside to embrace the terror of simply trusting God and believing that He has my best interests in mind and will do incredibly more than I could ever hope for.

Chances are that probably a lot of us are in that boat together.

Now hang onto that thought for a second and let me tell you a little about another theme in my life lately: God's faithfulness. It all started back in July. I was at CIY and for whatever reason, I was checking this blog and what do you know, I had received a comment from my dear friend Anne (who, by the way is an incredible young Christian woman and is way smarter, wiser, gracious, and loving than I am). She said some various things, but ended her comment with the simple statement: "Remember, Wes, He is faithful."

He is faithful.

It was so simple, yet so profound. "Faithful" is one of those Jesus words that I toss around a lot, but for the first time, I really thought about what it meant to say that God was faithful, and that was something that sort of stuck with me.

Well, not too soon after I purchased this daily readings Bible where Scripture is grouped into a day reading where you do a few OT chapters and 1 NT chapter a day, followed by some questions for thought. I started using this tool and it began me in Genesis and John. In Genesis, I was continually blown away by God's faithfulness. First you have God making a promise to Abraham that He will give him a son. Even though Abraham screws it up by sleeping with his wife's maid, God gives Abraham a son anyway, because God has promised that and God is always true to His promise.

Later on, Abraham sends his servant to the land of Aram to find a wife for Abraham's son Isaac. When the servant gets to Aram, he sits down to pray for God to show him a sign. And what do you know, before he even finished praying, God provided the very sign he was looking for.

In the story of Jacob in Genesis, we see him tricking everyone around him. First, he refuses to give his starving brother food unless he sells him his rights as firstborn. Later on, he dresses up like his brother and steals a blessing from his father that rightfully belonged to his brother. Yet, as the now-recognized firstborn, God had made a promise to Jacob. And even though Jacob was at points a terrible person, God was still faithful to him anyway, giving him the woman of his dreams, an incredible amount of possessions, and the pride of bringing forth the 12 tribes of Israel. From the story of Jacob, I learn that even when I don't deserve it, God is still faithful to me.

I don't think there's any getting around the simple fact that following Jesus is hard. Very hard. That's probably why many people quit following Jesus after He taught some difficult kingdom truths in John 6:66 (someone once noted to me the irony of this verse being 666). There's just no avoiding that God condemned His people in the Old Testament for refusing to give and to help, and that there is a similar precedent in the New Testament. In the story of the rich young ruler, in Luke 18:18-23, Jesus simply says that this seemingly devout follower lacks one thing; that is the giving away of his possessions for the betterment of the poor among them.

I think it's really interesting that in many cases, the people whom Jesus was speaking to about giving were not people who were rich. After reading this chapter I decided to do a little background research on Jesus' command to give to the poor in Luke 12:33, and the resource I was using mentioned that in many cases, people whom Jesus was speaking to about not worrying about possessions often had only one, maybe two sets of clothes period. Many of these people were living off very little, and it would only take one wrong turn or one bad thing to happen, and many of these families would be destitute. To me, this says that I can't use the "oh I'm just a poor college kid on internship" excuse before God. He didn't soften this teaching up for these people who are undoubtedly poorer than I am.

This, of course, isn't to say that God doesn't love you if you don't give or anything like that. Hardly the case... God's incredible love and grace for each of us goes beyond all human understanding. All I'm saying is that I believe that Jesus didn't come and teach we are entitled to a comfortable life; on the contrary, I think he teaches us to live an incredibly radical one. I give 10% to church. But I feel very convicted that for me at least, 10% frankly isn't very sacrificial giving. If I want to truly step out in faith and live a radical lifestyle for me, that's going to mean anteing up some more dollars to spend on some extremely worthy causes.

If you're like me, here are a few that you could look at:

• www.invisiblechildren.com. This is a favorite at CCU; this organization works to rescue children from becoming brainwashed child soldiers in the war-torn country of Uganda.
• www.one.org. The One organization simply seeks to end global poverty.
• www.ijm.org. International Justice Mission is an organization that seeks to end all forms of human slavery and/or trafficking, placing these people in a safe place where they can finally work and earn a real living instead of being mercilessly abused by others. What's also cool is that IJM actually works to also prosecute and hold responsible those who are abusing others, hopefully bringing this system of oppression and injustice crashing to the ground.
• www.onemillioncan.org. One Million Can is an organization founded by Passion, and it's essentially a site that has links to like 8 potential causes around the world that you can support; anything from providing life-changing medical procedures and surgeries for children in 3rd world countries to providing Bibles or recordings of the New Testament for people in countries where that isn't allowed to giving clean water to people in Africa.

Those are just 4 examples... I'm sure you can find many more. For me, this is the way God is calling me to step out, take a risk, and trust Him, knowing He will (gulp) be faithful. Maybe for you that's simply being more vocal about your faith at work. Maybe that's committing some time to volunteer somewhere. Maybe that's stepping into a ministry position at church. I don't know what it is that you need to take a risk and trust God in, but I hope that you do it, because God is faithful.

It's time we take the crazy love God has shown us and demonstrate that to someone else.

Crazy Love, Chapter 6: When You're In Love

Where's chapter 5, you may be asking yourself? Well, I'm not sure I'm ready to write that one yet.

But still, we press on.

This chapter really hits home for me, mostly because I think this issue of loving God has been a struggle at the center of my entire Christian life. You can say "I love Jesus" all that you want, but if the motivation isn't there, it simply isn't there.

I really struggle with loving God wholeheartedly and for the right reasons. I think I've shared on here before that I don't think I've ever really experienced what it means to be "in love" with another person, and that kind of frustrates me because I don't really have much of a barometer to go off of in my relationship with God. People tell me that "when you're in love, you'll know." Well, I'm not sure that I know, so I guess that means I haven't really experienced that... and biggest of all, that means I haven't experienced love with God.

I am definitely committed to being and living as a Christian, I think. (haha note the irony there? Well done, Wesley. Well done.) I mean, I've been baptized. I don't miss church; heck, I've committed my life to serving in ministry. I go to a Bible college, and I major in Biblical Studies. I give 10% of my paycheck each week in the offering plate. I try to let the teachings of the Bible shape the way I live my life and interact with others. I don't say this to brag, but just to state some facts.

Yet, is it possible that despite all of this that I am just missing the point?

I really wish to be engulfed in a relationship with God the resembles the one Francis Chan describes with his wife's grandmother. I really wish that that was me, were I just love spending time in prayer, reading Scripture, simply sitting back and worshipping, all that stuff.

But I think that if I'm really honest, I look at a lot of Christian spirituality as simply one big chore. I want all of the grace and forgiveness without much of the effort. I make a pretty good effort at the facade of a Christian life, but there's very little heart behind it. If all my faith does is fill a Sunday morning time slot, stop me from having sex before marriage and keep me from cussing and getting drunk all the time, then that's a pretty sorry belief system. I want a faith that transforms and changes me completely, and I'm not sure that I'm seeing that.

I'm kind of coming face-to-face with the idea that transformation doesn't just happen. Transformation won't happen in my life without my fair share of effort. For instance, I am hideously overweight, and for a long time I think I just kind of thought that would magically change without me actually changing for some reason. Yet, now I realize that change doesn't happen unless I make a change. Thus, this summer began my big running experiment.

The same goes with the Christian faith. I won't see my life transformed and changed unless I'm willing to take the initiative to make some change and transformation myself. That requires hard work like praying when I'm tired, making time to read God's Word each day, and worshipping even (especially!) when I don't feel like it.

But the great news is that God is more than willing to meet us halfway. I'm right on with Francis Chan in believing that we need God's help to love Him that much. I'm a sinful human, and I am incapable of loving anyone beautifully, truly, and completely. God will help me along in that process if I simply (persistently) ask Him. I think we just need to understand that it's not some magic process where I wave the wand of prayer and I'm magically transformed from Wesley Blackburn into Mother Teresa. There is real work involved.

So what have we put in the way of loving God? I've put a lot of stuff in the way.

• Spending hours of my day daydreaming about being in love with whatever girl I'm crushing on (probably only happens like 3000x a day).
• Spending my money on acquiring the newest clothes, gadgets, music, whatever.
• Placing a higher priority on spending time with friends over spending time with God.

None of these are bad things in and of themselves, but they become terrible when they are prioritized ahead of God. Remember the God we learned about in chapter 1? That God is way cooler, way bigger, way more important, and way more worthy of our worship than any other thing on that list above (or any of our lists, really).

Lord, help me to love You. Help me to be lost in a genuine love and affection for You. Help me to love spending every minute with You, and may I enjoy as close a relationship with You as humanly possible. May I not just read about examples of that relationship; God I want to experience that relationship. As scary as it is, Lord, I offer my entire life to You. I am surrendered to You. Lord, may I know You better and fall more in love with You each day.

Amen.

Crazy Love, Chapter 4: Profile of the Lukewarm

So to be perfectly honest, I looked forward to reading this chapter about as much as I would probably look forward to a root canal... or amputation.

But because of my desire to complete this book (or maybe just because I'm stupid), I kept reading anyway. And sure enough, it was rough going.

Over the past year especially, God has been opening up my eyes to an understanding that the Christian faith involves tough stuff. First off, Christian spirituality is tough stuff. There's the whole don't have sex before you're married thing, followed by the don't get drunk with all your friends thing, only to be followed by the whole you need to have intensely personal faith conversations with people who don't know Jesus thing.

And that doesn't even account for the whole love others and turn the other cheek thing.

But secondly, being a Christian involves becoming like Christ. And Christ was persecuted. He suffered. He was even crucified.

And we are called to do the same...?

I don't like the fact that I serve a God who commands me to die at the altar of self so that I can live a life that promotes the interests of others, that helps those who don't have a voice, that gives care and compassion to the people I feel deserve it the least. I wish Christianity was cooler and more trendy and popular. I wish that I was part of a faith where when I mention it I draw smiles off of people's faces and not scowls. I wish I didn't have to feel like there's the humongous elephant in the room of homosexuality or drinking or sex or you name it when I'm trying to make new friends who might not happen to be Christians. But that's a part of faith. That's a part of being a Christian... embracing stuff that's usually unpopular and that often makes your life harder, not easier.

When I read this chapter, I keep coming back to the simple idea that walking from a lukewarm Christian to a crazy love Christian happens when we simply learn how to go the extra mile. This chapter forced me to ask some difficult questions of myself regarding going the extra mile:

• Do I give to those who are poor or in need? Nope.
• Do I give sacrificially? Sometimes.
• Do I really look at my times with Jesus as something to enjoy, or just something I have to do? Probs the latter.
• Do I focus on heaven instead of the things of this world? To be honest, I can't even remember the last time I truly focused on the world beyond ours.
• When I'm at church, am I truly loving God or just going through the motions? Well, sometimes I find my mind wandering during worship, and I can't tell you the last time a sermon effected any serious life change for me.
• Do I love and care for people, even when they don't love or care for me back? Thinking of this I'm really haunted by some of the people I went to high school with. I can think of two guys who were, frankly, real jerks and acted stupid in school. They weren't really that nice to me. Yet, did I still reach out to them and love them like Jesus would? Nope. I can think of another girl who was just incredibly annoying and inconsiderate, and now in the post-high school world has turned into a real whore (sorry for the crudeness, but it's the truth). Yet, did I reach out beyond all the things I saw with her that annoyed me or that I disliked and try to love her? Nope.

I have a tendency to look at Jesus and the disciples and Paul and those guys and really look at them as radicals. The Bible would instead have us understand that these people weren't radical Christians, but just Christians. These were just people living the fullness of the Christian faith and the teachings of Jesus out. That's what a Christian is supposed to look like.

Just like anything else, I can't move on toward growth and healing until I own up to who I am and what I've done. So here, before everyone, let me make the confession that I am a lukewarm Christian. There is no getting around that. I haven't lived the Christian faith out in its fullness, and for that, Jesus has every reason to spit me out of his mouth. Take a few minutes and really think about that for yourself. We have a tendency to just sort of shrug it off, but give the question some real consideration. Are you a lukewarm Christian?

We need to repent. I took some time to do that this evening. God, I'm sorry for not giving sacrificially as You gave for me. Lord, I apologize for not loving people who don't love me back (even though You always love me, no matter what). God, I take my life and I lay it before You. Forgive me for the stupid words and the meaningless prayers and all that stuff. Lord, grant me Your forgiveness, and please through the power of the Holy Spirit help me better follow You.

But we shouldn't just meditate on all the stuff we do wrong... whether you're a lukewarm Christian or a crazy love Christian, God grants us His grace no matter what. We just fall down, and God picks us back up, dusts us off, and like the woman in John 8, tells us to try again. God's Holy Spirit is working in me, and I pray that He transforms me into a Christian who is deeply and madly in love with Him.

Lord, transform me. And forgive me.

Amen.

Crazy Love, Chapter 3: Crazy Love

I struggle to say the words "I love you."

I'm a pretty analytical person. And I am also of the persuasion that love is something beautiful and important. So, I probably also struggle to say "I love you" because other people toss the word "love" around so much. I know some people that love everything from their television to their grandma to their toaster oven.

I'm not so sure that's what love is meant to be.

I've never been in love, and I kind of wonder what that feels like. One day, I hope to fall just head over heels in love with a girl and have my heart beat fast and my stomach get butterflies each time she looks at me or talks to me or whatever. So juvenile, I know. But I hope to one day experience that. And I think that the fact that I don't feel like I know what love is or looks like or feels like kind of makes it hard for me to love.

I love my mom and my dad and most of the time, my sister (just kidding, I love her all the time). I love my friends. But I struggle to love God.

In addition to my struggle to say "I love you," I think a big reason why I struggle so much at loving God is simply the nature of the relationship. I just really struggle with loving this immense and huge God that I cannot see, touch, feel, etc. That's kind of weird to me.

I don't know that I carry a ton of baggage into looking at God like a Father. My dad is great, and I love him. However, through the first 12-14 years of my life, dad worked long, hard hours at his job. I feel like I never got to see him that much, and we've since just kind of had this relationship that's not very relational. Just kind of short, sweet, and to the point. We have our great moments, to be sure, but overall it's just kind of a not very relational relationship. Maybe I carry some of that over into my relationship with God, too.

I struggle at loving God. For the longest time, I did all the right Christian stuff, but I'm not sure it really did me much good because I did it because I would feel guilty otherwise. Especially in junior high and my first few years of high school, I did stuff like praying and reading my Bible not because I wanted to or because I loved God and wanted to get closer to Him, but because I would feel guilty and like a bad Christian if I didn't. Eventually, I got so frustrated because I wasn't getting anything out of this stuff that I basically gave up the day-to-day following God stuff. I didn't walk away from the faith or anything, and I certainly still made an effort to worship and follow God, but around my senior year in high school, I just kind of gave up on the whole daily Bible reading and prayer stuff because it was frustrating me and I just hated doing it. It was boring. I really empathized with that loveless faith that Francis described at the beginning of this chaper.

Probably because I was doing all that stuff for all the wrong reasons.

Since the start of 2009, God has really been working and getting a hold of me in this area. Slowly but surely I'm starting to do the day-to-day following God stuff like praying and reading my Bible because I understand that these are not exercises for me to check off of my Christian To-Do List, but that these are real ways in which God and I form a relationship. That's been difficult for me to embrace, but I'm slowly coming around, and that really excites me.

I sincerely agree with Francis Chan... if we ever truly learn and understand the basic idea that God loves us and cares for us and even wants a relationship with us, it will rock us to the core. I think that for me, familiarity has breeded contempt in this area. The message of God's love has become too familiar to me, and I gloss over it like I would any other mundane, ordinary thing. Yet, the fact that God loves me isn't ordinary at all. It's huge! It should shake my whole understanding of faith, following Jesus, and living my life.

After finishing the chapter, I was really overcome with this sense to simply meditate on the question: "What does it mean to say that God loves me?" I turned to 1 Corinthians 13 for my answer, replacing the word "love" with God. It was kind of a powerful exercise to pray about. Through it, I was reminded of God's incredible patience and perseverance with me. I was reminded that God always has my best interests at heart, and is incredibly kind and merciful to me. But most of all, I was reminded that God never fails, and would never leave me.

I love God. That's a fact. I love Him for what He's done for me, but I also love Him because of who He is, and because of the mere fact that even when no one else does, He chooses to care for me, to listen to me, and to love me, even when He gets absolutely nothing out of this relationship (which, let's be honest, is probably 99.99999% of the time).

"The greatest knowledge we can ever have is knowing that God treasures us" (p.61). I pray and pray and pray that God would continue to open my eyes to this mind-blowing truth.