Recently I babysat my little grandson. We had a great time. I fed him a bottle, sang to him, and held him while he took his nap, and then we played on the floor with his toys. He was very happy—and so was I. But when his mom came in the door, he became ecstatic. He crawled to her as fast as he could, and when she lifted him into her arms, he looked back at me with a huge smile and laughed and laughed. He acts the same way when his dad comes home from work. My grandson’s parents love him very much; they are as happy to see him as he is to see them.
As I have been thinking about this, I know that it’s natural for us to feel the same way about our relationship to our divine Father-Mother, God. Our relationship to Him is not like that of a grandchild to a grandparent—a generation removed—but the very close one of a child to a loving parent. God cherishes and takes joy in each of us as His own child. In the Bible the prophet Jeremiah realized this and wrote, “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee” (Jeremiah 31:3).
Do we really realize how much God loves each of us? This love is not sporadic or temporary. The love of God—the Love that is God—is with us all of the time, cherishing, leading, guarding, and guiding us. David, the shepherd, realized this when he wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd,” and then described in detail how much God cares for His creation (see Psalm 23).
