"I'll Like You For Always"

"I'll love you forever.  I'll like you for always.  As long as I'm living, my baby you will be."  (Robert Munsch, Love You Forever.)  A generation of kids grew up hearing those words read, or sung, to them while sitting on their mother's laps.  "I'll love you forever.  I'll like you for always..."

OK, anyone who knows me knows that I will try to find a spiritual lesson in just about everything.  Occupational hazard I suppose.  It's beginning to drive my kids crazy.  Hannah will often say, "Mom, please don't get all spiritual over this.  I know you want to -- but please don't."

My apologies to Hannah -- but seriously, this classic children's book SCREAMS spiritual lessons!  Most of them are so obvious.  "I'll love you forever."  God's very NATURE is love.  We serve a God Who defines Himself as love and has demonstrated that love for us in the most profound ways.  This everlasting, eternal, all-powerful God will love us FOREVER.

(And I'm not going to even try to begin to unpack the theological implications of that last sentence.)

So we know that God loves us.  But what about the second line: "I'll like you for always?"  Does God like us?  Does God like me?  For some reason, this one is harder to believe.  Sure God loves me.  There is almost a sense that He HAS to love me, doesn't He?  He created me.  I'm His child.  I'm a parent.  I know what it feels like to love my children.  So if I multiply that feeling by a hundred billion zillion I might get an infinitesimal idea of how God feels about His children.

But to like someone you have to want to get to know them, and enjoy hanging out with them.  If you like someone you take delight in them, in what they enjoy doing, in what excites them and ignites their passion.  If you like someone you actually PREFER their company.  Their company makes YOU happy and brings YOU joy.

So here's the spiritual lesson in the classic children's book, Love You Forever.  At least it's the spiritual lesson that means the most to me.  God LIKES me.  God LIKES you.  He really does.  He enjoys our company.  He loves to hear us laugh.  He loves to hear us sing.  He enjoys watching us create, hearing about our dreams, walking with us through our fears and heartaches.  We bring God pleasure just by being ourselves and allowing Him into every aspect of our world.

Don't get me wrong.  I am lost without God's love.  I am saved because of God's love.  My life has meaning and purpose because the God of the universe loves me with a love that is beyond comprehension -- a love that defines me and gives me hope for eternity.

But I'm finding it pretty amazing that this same God also finds me likeable as well.  He wants to hang out with me.  He actually enjoys my company.

God WILL love us forever --  but He'll also like us for always.