How Do We Know God Loves Us? How Do We Love God?

“Where’s Caroline?”

I couldn’t find our granddaughter anywhere.

Visions of severe reprimands from her mother danced through my head…

“You couldn’t find her? So that’s how she__________. ” (Fill in blank with a terrible calamity of your own choosing.)

“Where’s Caroline?”

“Going up the stairs, Pops!”

At twenty two months, Caroline is just starting to talk in phrases and I was shocked to hear an almost complete sentence.

I’ve relived that silly, simple moment in my mind over and over…

“Going up the stairs, Pops!”

I smile every time I think of it. That’s love.

We visited her house last weekend.

“Mimi and Pops are here!” She smiled and jumped up and down. “Mimi and Pops are here!”

She loves us.

Cleaning the kitchen the other day, I picked up a whole bunch of torn blue packets of sugar substitute, the tiny grains of white power leaving a trail across the counter.

I pick them up every day. Sometimes more than once a day. They are the leftovers from my wife’s tea making ritual.

I opened my mouth to ask her to stop leaving such a mess on the counter. But wisely (Thank you, God for your wisdom!), I stopped before any ill conceived words came out.

“I love you”, I called to her.

“What brought that up?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing.”

I’ve come to think of those little blue torn packets as a sign of her presence in the house and in my life. I smile when I pick them up.

How do we show we love someone? How do we know they love us?

Unwarranted smiling is one clue…
Saying “I love you” for no reason is another…
jumping up and down when someone walks in the room is more than a clue…
(Why do we leave that habit behind after our toddler years?)

How do we show that we love God?

John 14:15

15 “If you love me, you will obey what I command.

Matthew 22:36-40
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”