God’s Reckless Love

Next month is our annual Children’s Sabbath, a Sunday when our church’s worship is prepared and led by our children.  This year’s theme is “Reckless Love,” the title of a song by Cory Asbury that reflects on the way our heavenly Father loves and pursues us.

While researching this theme, I found that there is some controversy surrounding the song's lyrics.  Should we really sing that God loves us “recklessly?”  The naysayers argue that God does not love us in a wild or uncalculated way, but rather is responsible and orderly.  While I agree with that sentiment, I don’t think that is what the song is trying to convey.

The "reckless" nature of God's love is found in His pursuit of us even though we are constantly turning our backs on Him.  By human standards, that is reckless!  If someone you were in a relationship with kept turning their back on you, I would tell you to leave them - too many red flags!  It is crazy, delusional, and dare I say, reckless to stay in that relationship in hopes that the offender would change.

But this is exactly the way that God loves us.  Time and time again we betray, deny, and desert Him, yet time and time again he shows us mercy and grace.  It is reckless!  God pursues us when we are lost, waits patiently for us to return, and runs toward us when we do.  In the ultimate sacrifice, He sent His Son Jesus to lay down His life for us while we were still sinners, actively rebelling against Him!  True: God is careful, orderly, and omniscient, but God also loves us with reckless abandon!

I want Dutilh Kidz to know and experience the vast love of God that by human standards would be called “reckless.”  As they prepare their sermons, choose scriptures to share, learn their worship songs in choir, and act out their skits, I hope that the truth of God’s endless love for them will seep into their souls. I pray that as they share it with you, it seeps into your soul as well.