Does God Really Like Me?Sample

Does God Want Me?

Our two boys were born just seventeen months apart. Because they’re so close in age, they grew up sharing the same friend groups. Everywhere they went, they were together.

It was great when they were younger. But as they got older, it got tougher. Our older son didn’t always want his younger brother around. And our younger son felt overshadowed by his more outgoing—and older—brother. Over time our younger son developed the sense that nobody wanted to be friends with him. He felt like an afterthought. He felt unwanted.

Most of us can relate to that feeling. We work hard on a project and someone else gets the credit. We get passed over when someone less qualified gets the job. We don’t get invited to a holiday party or faculty outing. We feel invisible next to someone who is better looking, more fit, more outgoing, or more interesting. We all have the experience of feeling unwanted—at home, at church, in the office, and even by God.

But when we look to Jesus we see that everywhere He goes He gathers among the unwanted people, the outcast and despised. 

We see Jesus reaching out and touching a leper (Mark 1:40-41), willing to embrace the untouchable and unclean. We see Jesus talking with an unwanted woman who had failed in several marriages (John 4:1-42). We see Jesus heal Bartimaeus, a blind beggar crying obnoxiously from the road (Mark 10:46-52). And we even see Jesus talking with Zacchaeus, a tax collector who had probably robbed his entire village for years. Jesus even invites Himself over to Zacchaeus’s house, a high honor for such a detested man (Luke 19:1-10).

No matter how unwanted we feel, in Jesus we see God drawing near to us—because God really does like us. 

Jesus draws near to the lowly and the forgotten, reminding them that they are welcome in the Father’s family, a new family gathered from all people.

From Does God Really Like Me? by Cyd Holsclaw and Geoff Holsclaw