The Amazing Love of God

Have you ever taken the time to reflect on the amazing love of God in your life? Of course, if you’re not a Christian, this question might not apply to you since you are not saved. But it’s not too late. More on this later. It is my opinion that many Christians fail to stop and consider the love that God has for them and has had for them in their lives. When I stop and think, or are reminded by God, of the love He has displayed and shown me in my life, I’m in awe. I will apologize in advance for using myself as an example but for me, I am the best example I’m most familiar with. But understand, this not about me but about God.

I was reminded this morning of all that God has brought me through in my life. That includes before and after I was saved. You see, I believe God choose me for salvation before the foundation of the world.

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.  Eph 1:4-5

Was I aware of this situation in my life before I was saved? No. Even following my salvation it was after some intense Bible study that I was able to understand this. But the point is, after all I had been through or done in my life prior to my salvation, God still called me and delivered me to Jesus for salvation. A salvation which is for all eternity. I know and I realize there are numerous disagreements with the process of salvation and its eternal security but that’s not what this is about.

Christians need to realize that regardless of what we might have done in our past or what we might have experienced, God’s love for us is greater than anything this world can oppose it with. I believe my first experience with hearing from God was when I was about seven years of age. Following a Sunday morning church service and after hearing my uncle preach about heaven and hell, I decided I needed Jesus in order to stay out of hell. That’s called fire insurance and I’m not so sure I had really given my life to Jesus. But that didn’t matter because the Lord had called me and the time would come, on His timetable not mine, when I would surrender my life to Jesus and be saved.

As I have looked back on my life and now as a Christian, I can see the many times the Lord was there for me and I didn’t even recognize Him. As a young boy and on into my teen years, life was pretty good for me. We weren’t a wealthy family but we always had what we needed. But at the age of fifteen, my dad died as a result of an auto accident. God strengthened my mother and she reassured us that Jesus was taking care of us. To me, those was just soothing words. The truth of those words never hit home. But Jesus was taking care of us. It was just me and my younger brother at home at the time.

Two years later, my mom passed away from cancer. Now, at the age of seventeen, I had lost both of my parents and my future looked extremely dim. I didn’t have a clue as to what I would do from there. My mom had always encouraged us to do good and do our best but now she was gone, and I didn’t know where to turn. I was eventually given a choice to make by my older brother. I could allow him to get me a job where he worked or join the military. The military? The war in Vietnam was still raging on but I wasn’t ready to punch a time clock yet either. I wasn’t even able to make that kind of decision in my life yet. But I did and I chose the military at a time when any person representing a military branch was looked upon as being the lowest level of society. But I choose to be a Marine and to this day have never regretted making that choice.

I believe God was directing my path at that young age and I truly didn’t realize what I was about to experience. I had lost my father and two years later, my mother and one year after that, I found myself in the middle of the war zone with the Marines. For those four years of my life, it seemed that the theme was death. Were my thoughts attempting to try and figure out why God was doing this to me? No, not at all. I didn’t know God and never gave Him much of a second thought. Until I got to Vietnam. While I was in Vietnam, I prayed every day to a God I didn’t really know. All I knew were the things I heard my uncle say when he was preaching and the things I heard my mother telling us.   

I believed Jesus was real but that was the extent of my belief. My older sister had her pastor come to the house and baptize me before I went to Vietnam but all that resulted in was me having water sprinkled on my head. I still wasn’t saved. During my time in Vietnam, God walked me step by step everywhere I went. In the first two months, while I was walking point, I had stepped over five booby traps, some which could have blown me in half. If anyone is going to hit a booby trap, it will be the point man. God had stepped my feet away from them and they were discovered by those in the column behind me. I vaguely recall one of the guys commenting on my luck. At the time, I didn’t realize it wasn’t luck but God Himself directing my feet away from them.

Did I ever consider the love which God had for me when I was missing those booby traps? No, I didn’t yet, but I continued to pray and ask Him to get me out of there alive and in one piece. In the twelve months I was there, I was hit one time with shrapnel in my right face cheek. It was like a thud. There was no pain and I think I was more afraid than anything. It was what I refer to as a cheap purple heart. The point is, even when I did get hit, it was not life threatening or didn’t cause any physical damage. But if that small piece of shrapnel would have been an inch or so higher, it would have hit my temple and probably killed me. That fact didn’t sink in until after I was saved and realized that God had been with me during my entire tour. When I decided to write a book about my tour in Vietnam, God reminded me that I needed to include him in the writing and detail how He had walked me through some horrific situations and how He had protected me and my life. I did just that when I wrote, Memories of Vietnam[1].

I returned home and left the Marines and began a life of alcohol consumption which made life miserable for everyone around me. For the next fifteen years, alcohol was a major part of my life. I was classified as an alcoholic by counselors who I had met with.

Finally, at the age of 34, I heard Jesus asking me, “Are you ready to let me handle this?” It was crystal clear and in response to me attempting to get the booze out of my life which I couldn’t do. It came following an all-day Saturday drunk. I was in my bed and just waking up to what I thought was going to be another miserable day of having to face my wife and children. But before I could even get out of that bed, I heard Jesus asking me that question. Now, I know a lot of Christians don’t believe we ever hear the voice of God but it was loud and clear and from that moment to right this minute, I have never had any desire to even have a taste of alcohol. It was gone! That’s what I call, among other Godly things, the love of God in my life.

I’ve heard the phrase, the hound of heaven, many times in my Christian life as a reference to God’s continued hounding us to surrender and that’s what He was doing in my case. But in all that I experienced and all that I had endured, God was always right there bathing me in His love. He never stopped loving me and He never gave up on me. And I have to mention that the love He has bestowed upon each of us is also displayed in the love we have for others.

I can remember being prejudicial toward Asians following my tour in Vietnam. I was bigoted toward people of color and others who didn’t think like I did. But that was all gone when I was saved. I began to see people with the love of God and realized all the love He had for me when He should have kicked me to the curb and forgot about me. As I matured in my spiritual growth, I began to know and understand this love which can only come from God. It’s not a physical love (phileo) but an unconditional love (agape) He has for us. People whom I detested for one reason or another before I was saved, I now saw differently and that was through the eyes of God with a love He had put in my heart.  Only a person who knows Jesus as their savior can understand this love.

And that brings me to those who are not saved. God might be hounding you right now to surrender your life to Jesus. It’s possible He has been after you for years but waiting for the right time, His time, for you to surrender your life to Him and be saved from your life of sin and misery. He has loved you and kept you from severe harm just to bring you to this time. Today could very well be the day of your salvation. And then you will look back and see when and where He has covered you with His love and you didn’t even realize it. The love of God is a very powerful thing.

Look around at the world we live in. There is so much hatred and contention. And the love, the worldly love, can never bring a peace to this situation. It will never be about ‘love wins’, because that’s a worldly love and not the love of God. Only God’s love can bring real peace. Always remember the love God has for you and recognize it in your heart and in your life.

-Bill Petite

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[1] Memories of Vietnam, Bill Petite, Amazon Books