The Unfailing Love of God
Today’s passage is one of the most graphic in the Bible. Likening Israel to a cast-off infant, God describes in vivid detail His patient nurture and lavish provision for the young Israel. He describes her coming of age physically, then his covenant of marriage with her.
Though she was unfaithful in every possible way a woman could be unfaithful to a man, God admits through Ezekiel that He still loves her, no matter what. Though His rage rules for a time, eventually she will be collected and returned to His side—loved and cherished as though nothing had happened.
Today I began to wonder how a human man would respond to a wife like the one described by Ezekiel. How would it feel to provide for a woman from the time she was an abandoned infant until she was grown, to protect her and lavish every rich gift upon her, then to have her not only reject you, but pay other men to come into her bed? I thought of how humiliating that would be…what would the guys at the gym think about a man whose wife they had all slept with? Wouldn’t they be secretly thinking what a pathetic weakling he is?
Today’s passage defines God’s strength in a very subtle way. God’s unfailing, unapologetic, unrequited love is His greatest strength. Though He created the universe and everything in it, though He could vaporize the whole thing and start over in a heartbeat, He persists in loving the creatures that consistently reject Him, deny Him, and quite frankly make Him look bad.
In my flesh, I tend to judge strength in what a man can do. Today I am awed by what God doesn’t do. He never gives up. His love never fails. He never breaks a promise.
I am one of those people who make God look bad–you are, too, so don’t get all proud of yourself. I’m grateful today that God is still carrying my picture in His wallet, still willing to take me home with Him, still willing to admit that I belong to Him. He is faithful—even when I’m not.
If you’re reading through the Daily Walk Bible, today’s passage is Ezekiel 16-19.
