Reflection - Steadfast Love

by Rev Jenny Potter

As a minister it’s really easy to get so tied up in the church and other people’s spiritual needs that we can neglect our own. There are ways to prioritise our own faith growth, and one of mine is to have regular sessions of spiritual direction. Often the question is, “Where has God been in this situation?” A deeper one might be, “What kind of God do you believe in?”

The kind of God we believe in shapes so much of our lives, whether we recognise it or not. How we read the Bible, interpret books, interact with others, see ourselves and what roles we might pursue in life. The answer to this question can be the lens through which we look at life. If unexamined we can have a distorted image of God, and therefore become images of that distorted image. Like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy the crispness disappears, odd marks show up, the darks become blotchy and lighter, whites less pristine. Measurements off a photocopied plan will be wrong. We can become much less than the people God made us to be.

So many times I’ve heard people refer to the New Testament as describing God’s love and the Old Testament as being one of judgement. Yet the word ‘hesed’, God’s steadfast love, is repeated many times in the Old Testament. Whether translated ‘faithful care’, ‘lovingkindness’, Goodness’, or ‘unfailing love’ there is a sense of the rock steady, unconditional, ever-present care, kindness and love of God for the whole world.

How might we read the Old Testament if we started from “My God is steadfast love”? We hear the creation narrative filled with the joyous affection of the creator, the exodus filled with the faithfulness of the one who leads and guides, the lovingkindness of the God who warns a people that their path is destructive and calls the exiles home.

We might better hear the point of the narrator as to which parts of the story were blessed by God and where God critiques what happens. Jesus encourages Nicodemus to see with Spirit-eyes in the well-known passage, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17 NRSVue) An example of unconditional, steadfast love. Faithfulness is who God is, and God cannot be any other way.

What might our lives with Christ look like if we were to regularly reflect on the kind of God we believe in? If I believe in a God of steadfast love what might be my response to God? To others? May we each return to the image of our hesed God.