3RD WEEK OF ADVENT

My love shall never leave you.

You have probably heard the saying “Never say never.” It’s often used pessimistically: “Be careful; anything can happen.” One exception, though, is God’s love: it will never leave you. Two thousand years before you were conceived, God sent his Son to be born, to live, and to die in the same human flesh that you are made of—because he loves you. And that will never change. The Israelites, who first heard this promise in exile, might have been tempted to question God’s love. We too have doubts at times, so it’s good for us to ponder, “Who is this God who loves us with a love that will never leave?”

God is omnipotent. That means he is all-powerful. “God who created everything also rules everything and can do everything” (CCC, 268). He can even love you despite your sins. He can love others through you, even if you find loving them difficult. Think about Jesus in the manger. Outwardly, he looked like any other newborn, weak and utterly dependent on Mary and Joseph’s care. But we believe that he was the power and wisdom of God. And in the fullness of time, he revealed that power by conquering evil through his cross (Ephesians 1:19-20). All this so that his love would never leave you.

God is immutable. He is unchanging. He is constant and firm in his love for you. His attributes, his will, and his promises “do not change” (Malachi 3:6). If God says something, he will act on it; and if he declares something, he will bring it about. Not always in the way you expect and not always when you think it should happen. But it will happen. And he has promised that his love will never leave you.

This all-powerful, unchanging God wants to be the source of your peace. He wants to calm your heart when, like Israel, you face uncertainty and suffering. When your sins feel too great for him to forgive, he wants to remind you of his omnipotent and immutable love. When you are tempted to embrace the weak, changeable love of this fallen world, he longs to gather you to himself in great tenderness (Isaiah 54:7). This is the God whose love will never leave you!

“Lord, I praise you for your unchanging, all-powerful love!”

Psalm 30:2, 4-6, 11-13
Luke 7:24-30
Isaiah 54:1-10