To many of us, God’s love isn’t real. We’ve been mooching off the rumors from other people’s experiences with God. We assume that our lives are on the sidelines while God is busy loving those around us. So much of our energy is wasted believing that as long as we keep going about living, by some chance, will experience something of God.

God’s love is no coincidence. A coincidence is how we explain the unexpected. We write them off as random or having no origin or destination. When we accept anything from God as a coincidence, we are rejecting God’s sovereignty.

I recently visited an urban farm and was in awe of the okra plant. Did you know okra grows as a beautiful flower and then closes up and becomes what we know as okra? Like, really God? Such intention. Such order. Such detail.

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

-Matthew 10:29:31 ESV

Here Jesus tells us the following:

1. God is intentional. (even about birds)

2. God is detailed-oriented about us.

3. We are valuable to God. There’s no room for fear, insecurity about your worth even when things are difficult. 

He has numbered our hairs. I have my hair in sisterlocks and at one point I counted them and it was tedious–but God has counted our strands–that’s love!

When we all came to be in this world God had every intention of making our lives useful no matter where we find ourselves. 

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

-Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

Here God reassures the people that have endured rejection through exile that He’s with them. His love for us surpasses rejection. 

I can say this of my own life.

Growing up without my father, surviving sexual abuse, struggling to accept myself- through all of it, God was pouring out his love toward me. I know that when you are a victim of these kinds of things, it’s hard to believe that God could love you. But He did, and He is. Even when I wasn’t accepting of it. Even when I don’t notice it. God made advances towards me in my painful moments, in my shameful moments–He relentlessly pursued me because He knew one day I’d write about it. He knew I’d tell people about it. 

God loves us so much that he doesn’t let us find joy in the things that hurt us. No coincidence in being apportioned an immeasurable amount of love. A love that is made evident in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

John 3:16 is about safety. There is safety in the Love God gives us. It’s not like the love we never got from a broken relationship or failed attempt at happiness–His love is real.

This kind of Love is never a coincidence.