Happy Superbowl Victory to the Chiefs! I wanted to add my congratulations for a great game!
On another subject that’s not quite as celebratory, I have some friends who have pre-existing physical maladies, that make it difficult and even impossible for them to get health insurance. It’s extremely challenging and discouraging to them for lots of reasons, like managing the day to day health struggles, getting healthcare that’s helpful and say nothing of figuring out possible remedies or cures, along with proper diagnosis, etc. The health insurance system in America is fraught with dysfunction, loopholes, service gaps, frustrating policies, endless bureaucracy and enough paperwork to choke a horse (since horses eat so much paperwork).
Ultimately, I’m a very simple-minded person when It comes to health care. If I’m sick and I need medical attention, I want informed care so I can get better. And it’s true that I have lots of pre-existing conditions that could include mental deficiencies, forgetting to take my vitamins, some residue from previous injuries and bad eating decisions during international travel that can make my digestion and adventure from time to time.
I think the same is true for each of us in relation to God’s unconditional love for us. We each have pre-existing conditions that could disqualify us from receiving horizontal love in human expression and confines. But God’s love for each of us is unconditional and we don’t have pre-existing conditions that disqualify us from God loving us. There can be physical conditions that a health insurance company or doctor won’t treat. But there’s no human condition that God won’t love, for the simple and profound truth that God is love. You can’t have a pre-exisiting condition that will exempt nor exclude you from God loving you. While it’s possible that we might agree with knowing that God loves us, but living in this reality might be a totally different life.
When I think about this for myself, if I was convinced of God’s love for me, infused into my very essence with God’s love, perhaps some things would be different. Maybe I would have a different outlook on life, maybe my words and attitudes would have more grace, forgiveness and patience, maybe I would be more generous and maybe compassion would be more instinctual rather than purposeful and conscientious. Possibly the most soothing reality of living in total certainty of God loving me is being still with and receptive to God’s presence, without condition, qualification, calibration, breathless activity or wearisome striving.
For me to live out genuine love in my daily horizontal existence, it’s very helpful, even essential, to continually come back to God loving me for my default existence. Neither you nor I have pre-existing conditions that will ever exclude us from God’s love, based on Romans 8:35 which says that nothing separates us from God’s love! When I think in this way, it helps me lavishly live love, unlimited and unconstrained! Let’s not let our pre-existing conditions be hindrances for unconditional love since this is Who God is – Genuine Love!! We can see examples of this in Jesus’ interactions with the Samaritan Woman at the well in John 4, the woman caught in adultery in John 8, Zaccheaus the tax collector in Luke 19 and lots more!
