God Is a Reckless Lover
The kind of love that keeps coming for you, even when you keep running
Dear Besties,
There is something about God’s love that does not behave the way human love behaves.
Human love gets tired.
Human love keeps score.
Human love says, “After everything I have done for you, this is how you repay me?”
Human love can become cold, distant, proud, and conditional.
But God’s love?
God’s love will leave the ninety-nine just to come and find the one.
That is why sometimes, the only way I know how to describe Him is this:
God is a reckless lover.
Not reckless in the sense of being foolish.
Not reckless in the sense of not knowing what He is doing.
Not reckless in the sense of carelessness.
I mean reckless in the way His love chases us with a force we do not deserve.
Reckless in the way He keeps reaching for people who keep failing Him.
Reckless in the way He will break protocol just to show mercy.
Reckless in the way heaven seems to rejoice over one broken person coming home.
Sometimes I sit and think about the kind of people God loves, and honestly, it humbles me.
Because if we are being honest, some of us are not easy to love.
We doubt Him when life gets hard.
We disappear when things are going well.
We remember Him deeply in pain and casually in comfort.
We make promises in prayer that we do not always keep.
We cry for help and then question His timing.
We ask Him for signs, wonders, miracles, and proof, while forgetting the many times He has already carried us.
Yet He stays.
That is what amazes me about God.
The Bible says in Romans 5:8,
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Not when we had it all together.
Not when we were holy enough.
Not when we finally became disciplined.
Not when we stopped making mistakes.
While we were yet sinners.
That means God did not wait for your transformation before loving you.
He loved you right there in the middle of your mess.
Right there in your confusion.
Right there in your inconsistency.
Right there in your shame.
Right there in the version of you that you do not even like talking about.
And that is why His love feels reckless.
Because if it were man, many of us would have been disqualified.
If it were people, many of us would have been blocked, abandoned, insulted, exposed, or left behind.
If it were the world, they would tell you to fix yourself first before coming close.
But Jesus says, come.
Come tired.
Come dirty.
Come confused.
Come ashamed.
Come angry.
Come broken.
Come with tears in your eyes and questions in your mouth.
Come with weak faith.
Come with a trembling heart.
Just come.
One of the most beautiful things about God is that He is not scared of the parts of you that you are still healing from.
He is not intimidated by your darkness.
He is not shocked by your weakness.
He is not disgusted by your scars.
He is not sitting in heaven embarrassed that you came to Him again with the same issue.
No.
He is a Father.
A good one.
And good fathers do not throw their children away because they fell down learning how to walk.
The Bible says in Luke 15:4,
“What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?”
Read that again.
Until he find it.
Not “if he finds it.”
Not “if the sheep deserves it.”
Not “if the sheep apologizes enough.”
Not “if the sheep can explain why it wandered.”
He goes after it until he finds it.
That is the kind of God we serve.
A God who searches.
A God who waits.
A God who calls.
A God who restores.
A God who does not get tired of bringing His children back home.
Some of us think God only loves the polished version of us.
The church version.
The fasting version.
The healed version.
The version that no longer struggles.
The version that knows exactly what to say in prayer.
But no.
God loves the real you.
The you that is trying.
The you that is barely holding on.
The you that cries at night.
The you that is disappointed.
The you that is still asking, “Lord, where are You?”
The you that believes and still battles fear.
The you that smiles outside and feels weak inside.
He loves that version too.
I think sometimes we underestimate how deeply God loves us because we are too used to human love.
Human love often says:
Perform, then I will stay.
Prove yourself, then I will choose you.
Be useful, then I will value you.
Get it right, then I will be kind.
But God’s love says:
I saw you.
I knew you.
I chose you.
I came for you.
I stayed.
I died.
I rose.
I am still here.
The Bible says in Jeremiah 31:3,
“Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”
Everlasting love.
Not seasonal love.
Not mood-dependent love.
Not convenient love.
Not unstable love.
Everlasting.
Before you got your life together, He loved you.
Before you understood grace, He loved you.
Before you knew how to pray properly, He loved you.
Before you could even explain your pain, He loved you.
And He still does.
I know there are days when life can make you question this.
Days when prayers feel unanswered.
Days when silence feels loud.
Days when you look around and wonder if God has forgotten your address.
But His silence is not the absence of love.
His timing is not rejection.
His correction is not hatred.
His delay is not abandonment.
Sometimes love looks like protection.
Sometimes love looks like pruning.
Sometimes love looks like “not yet.”
Sometimes love looks like God refusing to let you destroy yourself with what you are demanding.
And even that is love too.
The Bible says in Hebrews 12:6,
“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”
That verse may not feel soft, but it is still love.
Because a God who corrects you is still a God who cares whether you become who He called you to be.
A careless God would let you ruin yourself.
A distant God would watch you drift and say nothing.
But our God loves too deeply to leave us untouched.
And maybe that is part of why I call Him a reckless lover.
Because He loves with intensity.
He loves with pursuit.
He loves with holy stubbornness.
He loves in a way that keeps pulling us back to life.
Think about Peter.
Peter denied Jesus.
Not once.
Not twice.
Three times.
Imagine hurting someone that deeply.
Imagine failing in the very moment you were supposed to stand strong.
Human beings would have used that as the end of the story.
But Jesus came back for Peter.
The Bible says in John 21:17,
“Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.”
After the failure, He still gave him purpose.
After the denial, He still gave him responsibility.
After the shame, He still gave him room.
Only God loves like that.
Think about the prodigal son too.
He wasted everything.
He left.
He made a mess of his life.
He returned with shame and rehearsed apology.
But the father did not stand there with folded arms.
He ran.
The Bible says in Luke 15:20,
“But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
That part gets me every single time.
He was yet a great way off.
Meaning he had not even fully arrived.
He was still dirty.
Still coming.
Still walking back.
Still carrying the evidence of bad decisions.
And yet the father ran to him.
That is God.
He sees you from far off and still runs toward you.
Not away from you.
Toward you.
I do not know who needs to hear this today, but you are not too far gone.
You are not too messy.
You are not too late.
You are not too damaged.
You are not too complicated for God’s love.
People may have made you feel hard to love.
Life may have made you feel forgotten.
Pain may have convinced you that you are on your own.
But that is not the truth.
The truth is this:
God still wants you.
God still sees you.
God still calls you His.
God still has mercy for you.
God still has room for you.
The Bible says in Lamentations 3:22-23,
“It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
Every morning.
Not once a year.
Not once in your best season.
Not after you earn it.
Every morning.
New mercy.
Fresh compassion.
Another chance.
Another breath.
Another reminder that love has not left you.
And maybe that is what I want you to carry with you after reading this.
God’s love is not neat.
It is not small.
It is not cold.
It is not distant.
It is wild in mercy.
Deep in compassion.
Steady in pursuit.
Faithful in ways we do not fully understand.
So yes, maybe to the human mind, it looks reckless.
Because what kind of God keeps loving people who keep falling?
What kind of Father keeps opening His arms to children who keep wandering?
What kind of Savior dies for people who cannot repay Him?
What kind of King stoops low to carry the weak?
Our God does.
And I am so grateful that He does.
Because if His love were normal, many of us would not survive it.
If His love were human, many of us would not qualify.
If His love were shallow, many of us would still be drowning.
But His love is deeper than our sin.
Stronger than our shame.
Louder than our fear.
Older than our mistakes.
And greater than our understanding.
So when you feel unworthy, remember this:
He still loves you.
When you feel forgotten, remember this:
He still sees you.
When you feel ashamed, remember this:
He still calls you back.
When you feel tired of yourself, remember this:
God is not tired of loving you.
And that, besties, is the kind of love that saves.
With love,
Cici Tiwa
P.S. At the end of this newsletter, I’ll be adding a song for my besties to enjoy