Do You Know God Loves You?
- Maggie Wallem Rowe
- Oct 13
- 3 min read
Thoughts from a Cat-Mom
AUDIO LETTER
Right now, this minute, answer me true: Do you feel loved?
It’s a flawed question, isn’t it. What do feelings have to do with fact? They flirt with it, maybe, sashaying around behaving as if they’re partnered with truth while instead they’re entertaining all manner of wild notions in some side room of the mind.
We are wedded to our feelings, but they consistently cheat on us. We think we’ve got our emotions under control only to find they’ve betrayed us.
We smile and assure others we’re fine – thanks for asking!- but inside we’re pushing down depression like a willful child who refuses to sit at the table.
Or the mind, which should be boss, finds itself reporting to feelings even though they’re interns new on the job every day.
Jesus asked a lot of questions, but I’m not recollecting one along the line of, “So how are you feeling today?”
He cared about personal well-being, “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5), and scriptural authority, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” (Luke 10).
Jesus was concerned about spiritual understanding, “Do you still not see?” (Mark 8:17), and faith, “Why did you doubt?” (Matt. 14: 29-31). And he cared deeply about our very human fears and failures: “Why are you so afraid?” (Matt. 8:26).
God is concerned about our emotions, our beliefs, and our capacity to comprehend his creation, but he never instructs us to respond on the basis of feelings that are fickle at best and deceptive at worst.
Does my cat feel loved? She’s safe and warm and well-fed, and occasionally she’ll permit me to pet her. I might even hear a faint rumble that sounds like contentment. I don’t know if she feels loved.
She only comes to me when she wants something.
She disappears once she’s satisfied without a backward look of appreciation.
She is haughty, picks fights and pollutes the home provided for her with messes emanating from both ends.
But I love her, yes I do. She hasn’t done anything to earn my love; she doesn’t have to. I love her just because.
And you know what? Someone loves me that same way too. And He loves you. Whether you’re feelin’ it or not does not change what is truer than true.
GOD LOVES YOU.
When longtime prayers seemingly go unanswered, we sometimes doubt that God truly does love us. A few months ago, I read TV anchor Savannah Guthrie’s book Mostly What God Does.
A committed Christ-follower since childhood, Savannah has this to stay about the inevitable spiritual struggles that come our way:
“Doubt is not a lack of faith. It is not the opposite of faith. It is an aspect of faith—a feature, not a bug... Doubt is just faith being worked out, like a muscle."
The best six-word prayer in the Bible? “Lord, I believe—help my unbelief.”
As with my cat, too often I behave as if God is here to serve me rather than the other way around. I ignore Him until I want something. I make messes and then expect Him to clean them up.
But He loves me, oh yes He does. And he loves you. It’s mostly what God does.
Just because.
“Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture…None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” Romans 8:34-39 The Message
His love and mine,
Maggie