Is God Loving?

Dear All Souls,

Recently, I was having a conversation with my daughter about God. The conversation followed on the heels of a Catechism class, where we had made a list of words to describe God. Some of the words we wrote down were: mischievous, wise, kind, creative, playful, loving. In the car on the way home, we got to talking about these words, and my daughter said, “I don’t think God is loving.” Why not, I queried? “Because it doesn’t seem like God is doing anything about the suffering in the world,” she replied. “If Jesus can feed 5,000 people from a few simple loaves and fish, why isn’t God feeding all the people who are hungry in the world? What about the people without homes? What about the people in pain? Is God doing anything to help them?”

There is an honesty in this question that caught the breath in my throat.

I think it worth acknowledging that any honest (and sane) person living in the world will have to ask this question at some point. We sing songs like, “Trouble Won’t Go” regularly in our church, precisely because it never stops being true. So let’s not pretend it’s all green grass and roses around here.

As a parent, especially as a pastor, it can be hard not to feel like you have to have answers to questions like these. But I didn’t try to answer this one.

Instead, we made a deal.

I promised to honor her honesty and to not preach at her questions. I simply asked that she give me permission to not lie about my conviction that God is loving.

I continue to hold the tension of this question. It’s sitting with me these days. And so, without trying to give a simple answer, I’d like to offer a few thoughts as arrows pointing towards the love of God in the world that I have come to know.

Signpost #1: G.K. Chesterton, in his book Orthodoxy, says, “It is very hard for a man [or woman] to defend anything of which he is entirely convinced. It is comparatively easy when he is only partially convinced. He is partially convinced because he has found this or that proof of the thing, and he can expound it. But a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up…There is about all complete conviction a kind of huge helplessness.”

In some way, I resonate with this “huge helplessness” when it comes to whether God is loving. I came to faith at the age of 18, and my primary conviction, after encountering the Jesus of the Gospels, was simply, to quote John the Beloved, “God is love.” I have journeyed with Jesus now for almost 30 years, and I cannot do much more than point to Jesus in response to my conviction, though with Chesterton, my conviction is rendered nearly inarticulate by time and experience. But make no mistake, I am thoroughly and utterly convinced. I, like Peter, can say little more at this point than to ask, “Where else would we go?” Jesus is the place to start, and Jesus is the place where we must finally end.

Signpost #2: I recently listened to an interview with author Kenneth Tanner, about a book he wrote titled Vulnerable God. The book is an extended meditation on the incarnation – that God became truly, fully human in the person of Jesus. The book is written as a series of meditations drawn from real life experiences. The interviewer described this book as theo-patho-graphy: what we can know of God by being with those who suffer. I would urge you to read the book. At the heart of the book is a chapter titled, “Healer.” This seems right. What we affirm in the incarnation is not simply that God “got into the mess” of the world with us, but also that God is doing something about the mess, setting things right. A Christ-centered affirmation that God is love is saying - It won’t always be this way. God is healing the world. Sometimes it’s easy to confess that, and sometimes it’s wildly difficult.

Is God loving? It’s one of the most honest questions we can ask. I honor my daughter for asking it. If there is an answer, I think it will be found in Jesus.