Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere

by Savannah Guthrie

What are the six foundational aspects of a connection to God? Here is what I came up with: Love. Presence. Praise. Grace. Hope. Purpose.

All I know is it took me a long time, a lifetime of church and no church, faith and not much faith, seeking and failing, hoping and falling, to understand this basic precept: mostly what God does is love us.

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Ephesians 5:1–2

Mostly what God does is love you. To believe this about God is the essence of faith: giving God the benefit of the doubt in a world that invites cynicism and despair.

I’ve always felt believing in God isn’t really the hard part; believing he is good and actively engaged in our lives and the world in the face of so much pain—that is the hard part.

This is our great commission: choose to believe in God’s love. Wrap yourself in it; let it warm you from the inside. Then go out into the world, and you do it too.

Motherhood. What a revelation. Physically. Emotionally. Intellectually. And yes, spiritually. I can think of no other experience that has more enhanced my understanding of God.

He loves. Like a mother. But better.

Marriage is an act of will and volition: deciding that you love that person, and that person loves you—every day. A relationship with God is just that—a relationship.

God is here, now, and his speaking to us does not depend on our speaking to him. His thoughts about us do not depend on our thoughts about him. He doesn’t wait to come until he is called.

It is incredibly hard to hear God’s voice in our whirring, mile-a-minute culture of commotion. The internet is loud. The news is loud. Our music is loud. Our kids are loud. Our problems are loud. Our distractions are loud. And God is described as having “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12 NKJV). No wonder we miss so much.

When time is short, lives are harried, minds are distracted, and our internal dialogues are burdened, we can say their names, trusting that God will take it from there.

Wherever you are in this moment and however you feel, if you want to immediately alter the atmosphere, if you want to instantly change the air, praise him.

fear will always leave out one crucial factor: the sweet, saving presence of God himself.

When you witness beauty, in whatever earthly form it takes, you recognize the author and are filled with that glorious and inexpressible joy.

To bless in the biblical sense means to ask for or to impart supernatural favor. When we ask for God’s blessing, we’re not asking for more of what we could get for ourselves. We’re crying out for the wonderful, unlimited goodness that only God has the power to know about or give to us.1 Bruce Wilkinson, The Prayer of Jabez

Comfortable is not where the action is. It is not where you will find out who you really are.