Steadfast Love

“The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” – Psalm 145:8

One thing I feel acutely aware of these days are the limits of my emotional reserves. If I begin each day with a certain amount of emotional capital, then I make withdrawals every time I exercise patience while teaching the kids, buffer an emotional outburst or negative mood, or address an iceberg issue. These things take a forbearance that costs something, and the cost is higher if I am physically tired or meeting simultaneous needs at once. 

My reserves are not unlimited. When there is a good flow of input as well as output, I don’t notice this so much, but make nothing but withdrawals for long enough, and the limits of my patience become clear. Eventually it feels like I have to dig deeper and deeper to find the composure that the moment calls for. I need to replenish those reserves through respite, through receiving emotional care from others and from God, in order to keep going.

The Bible talks over and over about the chesed love of God. This word doesn’t really have an English equivalent—it is translated “steadfast” or “unfailing” love—but it basically marries two ideas, the idea of love, and the idea of commitment. God’s love for us is not based on us. It is a setting of the will to love, regardless of how we respond to him, and regardless of how He feels. It is as if God greets us each day with an unlimited reserve of love. His forbearance, his patience, his longsuffering love towards us is absolutely without limit or qualification.

Something as simple as the sun rising every single morning, without fail, reflects this chesed love of God. Walter Brueggeman reflects on this in his poem “At The Dawn”:

      Our first glimpse of reality this day—every day—is your fidelity.

      We are dazzled by the ways you remain constant among us… 

      Now, at the dawn, our eyes are fixed on you in gladness.

      We ask only that your faithfulness

         permeate every troubled place we are able to name,

         that your mercy

         move against the hurts to make new,

         that your steadfastness

         hold firmly what is too fragile on its own.