"I have to love you, but I don't have to like you"

How many times have you heard that saying or used it yourself?  The message is the always the same it's just saying that just because you love someone and always have that bond, doesn't mean that you always have to like them.  I wonder how many times we assume that God has that attitude.

I personally find myself avoiding God when I've slipped up and let Him down.  "God loves me, but God really doesn't like me right now, so I'm going to just avoid Him for a while.  Just until I can counter-act the bad thing with several good things, then He'll like me again".  It wasn't until recently I realized just how wrong that perception is.  A while back my youngest brother and I got into a slight, okay a big, disagreement.  He'd been asked to pick something up, but instead threw a temper tantrum and thrown things all over my kitchen.  I was at my rope's end and standing there (with a wooden spoon covered spaghetti sauce in my hand) watching him destroy my nice clean kitchen was too much.  I spent him to his room to re-evaluate his actions.  As I turn back to the dinner on the stove, I thought, "I have to love you little boy, but I don't have to like you"!  Even as I thought it, I realized how untrue that was.  I still loved my brother, I still liked him, I just hated his actions.  That got me thinking, "Maybe God never really dislikes me as a person, maybe He just dislikes my actions".  That was a mind-blowing thing for me.  To realize that God never ever ever ever EVER dislikes me, He dislikes the things I do that don't honor Him.  Meaning God's probably never looked at me, sighed, and said, "Well Brianna, I have to love you, you are my daughter I guess, but goodness child pull it together and stop being dumb".

Can you imagine how much grace that is?  To look at someone who consistently making mistakes and continue loving them, and liking them just as much as you did before, even if it means that you have to fix some of their messes.  For example, say that you absolutely adore your senile mother.  She comes to visit and tries to help you out.  In the process she smashes your best china, bleaches your blue towels (which of course match your blue bathroom), microwaves a spoon and ruins the microwave, and scrubs the paint off your walls trying to clean up a spot that's really a shadow.  Unless you are an absolute saint, you're going to be on edge waiting for your mother to leave.  However, that's not how God sees us!  God is the one smiling holding a glue gun for the china, the blue dye for the towels with an "It's going to be alright hug", a shrug and a "I never use the microwave anyway", and a bunch of paintbrushes to repaint the wall.  He's not thrilled about the work He's going to have to put in to fix the mistakes, He's focused on how much He loves us, and how desperately He wants us to realize us how so very precious we are.  It's really kind of mind blowing when you think about it, and it's totally awesome!