Intertribal Life Newspaper -

There’s a great verse in the Bible that reminds us that we are children of God (First John 1:9). We also see that as a result of being a child of God, this same God wants to lavish His love on us. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.” If you come to truly understand what this means it will heal your broken heart.

If this doesn’t give you and me hope that our broken hearts can be healed, I don’t know what will. When we look at this one verse, we see that the love that the Father has for us is great and that it is supposed to be lavished on us. Is this something you would be interested in? Is this something you have thought about before in this way?

Has your heart been broken by the weight of the world and the weight of relationships that have been unhealthy? There’s a song by the Indigenous band Eagle and Hawk which speaks of one who “bears the weight of the world on his shoulders.”

Have you ever had any sort of love lavished on you? From God or your family, or from your spouse? This is our dilemma. Many of us have never had anything lavished on us. We cannot give what we do not have.

Many of us in Aboriginal communities have only had abuse poured on us. Many of you are in prison right now and you have had only abuse and neglect done to you. Many of you have been through residential schools and barely survived in life. Many of you have broken families and your hearts are truly broken, longing to be healed. You have tried many things in this world trying to heal those hurts and wounds.

Many of you have tried alcohol or drugs to heal your wounds, but these substances have only irritated those hurts. Or you have tried forms of gambling, but that has only left you financially broke and depressed. Many of you have tried sexual relationships outside of marriage and that has only left a wake of children from many different partners that you haven’t raised. Or you’re a workaholic. You think that if you keep busy, and try to be successful in this world, that will take the pain away.

You may have forgotten that when you become a believer in Jesus Christ, you automatically become a child of God. The verse even says, “And that is what we are!” It even says it with an exclamation mark. In fact, the sentence before it ends with an exclamation mark as well. When a sentence ends with an explanation mark it means that it is important. Have you felt the importance of this verse before? Have you experienced the great love of God lavished on your life? Have you ever lavished the love of God onto other people?

The verse then says, “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.” The world doesn’t know anything about the lavishing love of God and how it can bring ultimate and permanent healing to our broken hearts. If the world does not know Creator God, the world knows nothing about how great this love is. The world knows nothing about us or God and the wonderful relationship we can have with our Heavenly Father. This is another dilemma.

The first dilemma is that we can’t give what we don’t have. The second dilemma is that the world doesn’t have true knowledge about God and therefore the world has no solutions for us either. We are faced with the choice of either becoming a child of God and allowing His great love to transform our lives or continuing to experience our brokenness. We need to allow His great love to lavish us, so we can lavish others, and we can all be healed from this great lavishing love that the world knows nothing about.

I challenge you to not only think of God as love, but also to take that a step further. His love is great and it is intended to be lavished on us. Have you experienced the great lavishing love of God and had your broken heart transformed and healed? Would you be interested in something like that? When you do experience this great lavishing love of God, it will change everything you do. It will change everything about you. It will heal your heart.

Parry Stelter is originally from Alexander First Nation and is founder of Word of Hope Ministries and lives in Edmonton, Alberta. http://www.wordofhopeministries.ca