( Apologies if you have heard this before 😊 ) When I was working as a social worker many years ago I remember going through a phase where I was so super aware of the favour of God on my life. I remember driving to work every morning and feeling as though His had was resting on my head as I was driving. I felt that He was both blessing me and approving me. And in the blessing there was huge favour. The dictionary says 'favour' is approval and liking of someone. We often speak about God loving us - and in some ways that is easy to understand because He is our Father and therefore it is His ' job' to love us 😊 But we much less frequently think about God liking us. In those drives to work over a period of weeks and weeks I felt that God actually liked me. He didn't just love me as a Father loves a helpless baby, but He liked me as a friend, a co-worker, a buddy. He liked hanging out with me. He liked who I was turning out to be. He liked the things I did , the fact that I wanted to spend time with Him, the conversations we were having. He liked my worship. He liked my personality. Being liked by God is amazing. Do you know that He likes you?? Really He does. He thinks you are brilliant. He likes your smile. He likes your sense of humour. He likes the way you think about things. He likes your taste in music and the fact that you are still hanging out with Him after all these years. Yes, He loves you enough to die for you - but He likes you enough to want to spend time with you. All the time. Every day. He approves of you. Isn't that wonderful? Sometimes you don't even approve of yourself, but Jesus looks on you with approval. He says ' Yes!' when He looks at you. Look over your shoulder right now and there He is, just waiting for you to smile at Him and say ' hi!'
Since that season of my life I have not had such an intense and prolonged experience of His favour - but perhaps I don't now need to actually feel it in that way. Because having experienced the feeling of it I now have some understanding that this is the way God sees me all the time - whether I am feeling it or not. I suspect Mary felt all this and so so much more as she listened to the angel telling her that God had chosen her to be the Mother of His Son.
I remember Graham Cooke once getting us all to close our eyes and imagine an enemy army in front of us. Fierce and wild and armed to the teeth outnumbering us and intimidating with their weaponry and their ugly demeanour. We, on the other hand, are a rag tag army with few weapons. We don't look at all scary or intimidating. We look a bit pathetic. He asked us to picture the scene, and then to let the camera of our minds eye pan out until we can see that God is standing behind the enemy army. Massive. Bigger than that. So big that the camera has to pan out miles in order to get all of Him in the frame. They are completely unaware that He is there. All of a sudden the massed ranks of the enemy army seem like ants in comparison. God looks down on them. Then He looks at us and smiles. Then He winks.
He is on our side. We are His friends.
We are going to win.
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