God's Love that Surpasses Knowledge

By Fr John Kanichery VC

The human heart craves to love and to be loved. When it fails to receive love in the way it desires, it is grieved. It is the Lord who gives strength to the sorrowful heart. By sending his love, God strengthens it. He says: "I will never leave you or forsake you" (Heb 13:5). It is characteristic of human nature to consider those whom we love as very dear and precious to us when we receive love, consideration and recognition from them. When these comforts are denied we feel rejected, useless, good for nothing. Such thoughts trouble us. But God's love surpasses our knowledge (cf Eph 3:18-19). Let us try to understand some characteristics of this love that surpasses our knowledge.
 
 1. A love that pursues us as often as we reject it

When we examine the history of the Israelites, we find a people who gave up God several times and, immersed in idol worship, went their own way. Yet God did not forsake them. "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel" (Hos 11:8)? God's love is such that it pursues man as often as he spurns his love. "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me" (Hos11: 1-2). We see in the Bible a picture of God who desires that his children must be saved at any cost, however many times they may reject him. He says, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more" (Heb 10:17).
  
2. A love that looks for the lost sheep and purifies it

A God who is ready to forget all our offences and pour out his love, will never forsake us. He comes after us. He has the mind of the shepherd who sets out and wanders about to look for the lost sheep. When he finds it, he purifies it and loves it as his own. When the repentant sinner returns to him, he heals him of all the wounds he sustained by wallowing in a pigsty. (cf Lk 15:23) "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness" (Ez 36:25).
 
3. A love that returns the lost status of son-ship

"He sustained him in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye"(Deut 32:10). It is to make the lost sheep fully his that God set out to look for him and purify him and give him back his lost sonship. "They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them"(Mal 3:17). In the sight of God every man is precious and honored and loved(cf Is 43:4). God's love is such that it surpasses our knowledge.

Man's knowledge has limitations. When man, who has limitations, is united with God, who has no limitations, the lack of love and consideration of this world will not trouble him. What the human mind perceives as evil and distressing, will be seen as God's mercy that turns it into something good.