To many, the old Testament seems frought with images of blood and guts and war, and a wrathful God who takes vengance on helpless humans at any chance He gets. A lot of folks would therefore be surprised at this single verse penned by an obscure profit in a little-known book of the Bible called Zephaniah. It’s found in chapter 3, v. 17:
“The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”

Any of you who have ever held children in your arms and sang over them as you rocked them, rejoicing, know precisely what this verse means. Have you ever thought about the fact that God loves you just exactly like that? Yeah–I know–it’s hard to fathom, but He does.

The Other side of that coin is that he loves others like that as well. And he loves us even when our behavior doesn’t warrant it, because He knows we are separate from our behavior. We might be acting like an idiot, but we ourselves aren’t one. We can change our behavior, but God created us in His image, and that will never change.

Again, that applies to others as well. I’m trying very hard during these extremely stressful times to understand that even when people act like idiots, God nonetheless sings over them just as He sings over me. They’re created in His image just as I am. And just because they (or I) act like idiots doesn’t mean we are one.

I pray we’ll all extend grace and prayers to one another during these extraordinarily frought times.