There is a quote from William Shakespeare that says:
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
When we read the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, without a shadow of a doubt we see that God loves people. Even though we’re sinful, careless and full of failure – He still loves every single human being that ever walked the face of this earth.
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
- 2 Peter 3:9
At the Rise Up Bible Conference I attended the last of December, a speaker said in their session, “The Bible is covered with His [God’s] love.”
Love was and is a big part of God’s plan for mankind. Since He created the universe, God has poured out His love – He made Adam and Eve a beautiful garden to live in, He promised Abraham (who was childless) that he would have a son, He delivered Israel from the bondage of slavery in Egypt, and there are many more illustrations in the Bible to list. But out of the three mentioned, there is one common denominator – in some capacity, all three failed and were either disobedient or took matters into their own hands, concerning God’s promise of love to them.
Adam and Eve committed the very first sin by disobeying God.
When Abraham saw that Sara was past the normal age of bearing children, he took matters into his own hands and had a child through Sara’s maid, Hagar.
And even though God delivered Israel from Egypt, it didn’t take long for them to mold a golden calf and worship it instead of the God who delivered them!
The Lord had nothing but love for these people and look at how they responded to it! As we look through the Old Testament we see people getting in a hurry to be in trouble/sin, and God’s patience with them, waiting l-o-n-g periods of time before judging them. In Isaiah 65:2, the Lord says, “I have spread out mine hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, and after their own thoughts.” God continually offers His love and it is continually rejected!
However, the ultimate rejection of God’s love was when His Son was crucified. We know the story well, don’t we? It was when the Son of God was nailed to a cross, beaten, mocked, scourged, spit upon, and slapped in the face. Those are some pretty depressing thoughts for Valentines Day, aren’t they? But as Shakespeare said, “The true course of love never did run smooth.”
Here is a thought to warm our hearts – God wasn’t concerned about the course of love running smooth, was He? He was concerned about the true course of love…and whether it was smooth or not – He was not giving up on us, but rather, willing to do anything to make that love available to us, even when we didn’t deserve it, or did not want it at the time. That, my friend, is the true course of love.
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