September 5, 2001
The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying:
"I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
I will build you up again
and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel.
Again you will take up your tambourines
and go out to dance with the joyful.
Jeremiah 31:3-4
Terms of endearment... special phrases, nicknames etc.. that communicate to someone how special they are, how much you love them or care about them. As I read these verses yesterday I was thinking about God's use and choice of the term 'Virgin Israel'. In this I see first God's affectionate nature, his gentleness and his love for his people. In a difficult time he doesn't give them what, in their insecurity, they might expect to hear... perhaps he wanted to startle them by his love for them! What a contrast... that is perhaps the last 'term of endearment' they deserved to have applied to them or expected to hear. God has charged them with prostituting themselves by worshipping false gods yet it is the heart of God that when he looks at them he only sees who they can be, what he's planned them to be and he wants them to feel his love! God's heart for us is no different today... when he looks at us or thinks about us fortunately it's not through a lens of 'what we deserve'.. if I got what I deserve in this life I'd be in trouble.. but God sees inside to the heart, to what I can be and constantly holds that out before me! Amazing!