Everlasting Love

Jeremiah 31:3

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”

There are some words we may spend a lifetime learning how to receive.

I have loved you.

Not:

I will love you when.

I will love you if.

I will love you once you have become.

But:

I have loved you.

And then God places something immeasurable around those words:

with an everlasting love.

A love that did not begin with our awareness of it.

A love that is not sustained by our ability to deserve it.

A love whose origin lies not in something we have done,

but in who He is.

And from within that love comes another extraordinary movement:

“With lovingkindness I have drawn you.”

Perhaps we have sometimes imagined God drawing us

through pressure,

obligation,

fear

or our need to somehow become acceptable to Him.

Jeremiah gives us a very different picture.

Love draws us with Love.

The Breath Within the Words

The Hebrew phrase is:

אַהֲבַת עוֹלָם אֲהַבְתִּיךְ
ahavat olam ahavtikh

“With an everlasting love I have loved you.”

The word translated love comes from:

אָהַב — ahav
to love

But tucked between these words is the one that gives this love its extraordinary horizon:

עוֹלָם — olam

Olam can carry the sense of:

everlasting
eternal
ancient
perpetual
enduring beyond the horizon

The Hebrew idea can reach toward what lies beyond our visible boundary

beyond what we can presently see or measure.

And so:

ahavat olam

An everlasting love.

A love whose horizon we cannot find.

We may be able to identify the moment when we became conscious of God's love.

But that is not necessarily where His loving began.

Our awareness has a beginning.

His Love does not.

I Have Loved You

There is something deeply relational about the way God speaks here.

He doesn't give Israel (and us) a definition of love.

He says:

I have loved you.

This is personal.

Love is not presented merely as one of God's attributes to understand.

It is something being directed toward us.

Received by us.

Experienced in relationship.

And that can sometimes be much harder to receive than to believe.

We may quite comfortably say:

God is love.

And yet struggle to allow the words:

God loves me

to settle deeply within us.

Perhaps because we know ourselves.

We know our inconsistencies.

Our questions.

Our mistakes.

The places where we still feel unfinished.

And yet the declaration does not begin with us.

It begins with Him.

I have loved you.

Before we explain ourselves.

Before we improve ourselves.

Before we prove anything at all.

Love has already spoken.

With Lovingkindness

Then comes one of the richest words in the Hebrew Scriptures:

חֶסֶד — hesed

It is difficult to capture hesed with a single English word.

It is translated in different places as:

lovingkindness
steadfast love
mercy
faithfulness
kindness
covenant love

Hesed is not fragile affection.

It is love that remains.

Love that acts faithfully.

Love that binds itself relationally to another.

Love that continues to extend kindness because faithfulness belongs to its very nature.

And God says:

“With hesed I have drawn you.”

This matters.

Because it tells us something about the way Divine Love moves toward us.

Not coercively.

Not manipulatively.

Not through fear.

Not by demanding that we make ourselves worthy enough to approach.

Hesed draws.

Steadfast Love moves toward us and invites us into relationship.

I Have Drawn You

The Hebrew word translated “drawn” comes from:

מָשַׁךְ — mashakh

It can mean:

to draw
to pull
to lead along
to extend
to continue

There is movement in this word.

But notice what creates the movement.

Hesed.

God does not say:

I frightened you toward Me.

Or:

I pressured you toward Me.

Or:

I withheld My love until you came closer.

He says:

With lovingkindness I have drawn you.

The drawing itself reveals the nature of the One doing the drawing.

We are being drawn by the very Love into which we are being drawn.

Perhaps the deepest movement toward God

has always begun with God.

His Love awakens our response.

His kindness makes relationship safe.

His faithfulness gives us somewhere to rest.

Love recognises Love and begins to turn toward it.

A Love That Precedes Us

There is something particularly beautiful about placing these two thoughts together:

I have loved you with an everlasting love.

and

With lovingkindness I have drawn you.

The drawing does not create the Love.

The Love creates the drawing.

We are not drawn toward God so that He might eventually love us.

We are drawn because Love is already moving toward us.

That changes something.

Perhaps our journey with God is not ultimately the story of our search for Him.

Perhaps beneath our searching there has always been another movement.

We were being drawn.

Through moments of beauty.

Through questions we could not silence.

Through unexpected kindness.

Through longing.

Through restlessness.

Through the quiet sense that there must be something more.

Perhaps even through seasons when we thought we were moving away.

Still—

hesed.

Love continuing.

Love extending.

Love drawing.

What Might This Look Like in Our Lives?

Perhaps Jeremiah 31:3 invites us to notice what has been motivating our relationship with God.

Are we moving toward Him because we are afraid of disappointing Him?

Because we believe we should?

Because we are trying to become more spiritual?

Because we need an answer?

Because somewhere within us we still believe we must earn His closeness?

Or are we beginning to recognise another movement?

Love drawing us toward Love.

This might look surprisingly gentle.

A desire to sit quietly for a few moments.

A Scripture that keeps returning to us.

Something beautiful that unexpectedly moves our heart.

A question that refuses to disappear.

A longing for something more real.

A moment when we suddenly become aware:

I am loved here.

Perhaps we don't need to manufacture movement toward God.

Perhaps we can begin noticing the ways hesed is already drawing us.

An Invitation to Encounter

For a moment, allow everything else in the verse to become quiet and simply hear:

I have loved you.

What happens within you when those words become personal?

Not:

God loves people.

Not even:

God is Love.

But:

I have loved you.

Is that easy to receive?

Or does something within you resist it?

There is no need to correct whatever arises.

Simply notice.

And then:

Where might Love have been drawing me throughout my life,

even before I recognised it as God?

Perhaps there are moments you can now see differently.

People.

Places.

Questions.

Longings.

Unexpected kindness.

Beauty.

A sense of belonging.

A longing for home.

And finally:

What would change if I believed that God's movement toward me

has always begun in Love rather than expectation?

We don't need to rush toward an answer.

Perhaps we can simply allow ourselves to be drawn.

A Simple Practice

Place a hand gently over your heart if that feels comfortable.

Allow your breathing to become unhurried.

And hear the words:

I have loved you.

Breathe.

With an everlasting Love.

Nothing to earn.

Nothing to prove.

Nothing to become before Love can reach you.

Another breath.

With lovingkindness I have drawn you.

Perhaps imagine your hands opening rather than reaching.

You don't need to pull yourself toward God.

Simply allow yourself to receive the Love already moving toward you.

Everlasting Love.

Behind you.

Around you.

Before you.

Beyond every horizon you can see.

And perhaps remain for a moment with this quiet recognition:

I am not being drawn toward Love in order to become loved.

I am being drawn because I have always been loved.