I’ve learned so much from my kids about my relationship with the Father but this one is priceless! Saying “I love you” has been a regular, consistent and heartfelt thing around our house since Julie and I were married 38 years ago, …and it still is today. We were only married a year when Clint was born and our lives have been rich, as parents of 5 phenomenal kids.

I’ve found that God is faithful to instruct us in whatever situations we find ourselves in. But being a parent offers, maybe, the best scenario of being in the ‘school of life’ and for learning from Him. 

When one of my little boys (I’ll withhold his name so as not to risk any chance of embarrassment) was just beginning to learn to talk I’d catch myself 10-15 times a day telling him “I love you”, to which he’d reply, “I yub oo too, Daddy”. First off, I do love him….but the Lord got me to thinking about it. And it became apparent that the thing that I enjoyed the most about it was that I loved to hear him tell me in his unique little way that he loved me too.

The Lord showed me that my little boy had absolutely no idea, whatsoever, what the word ‘love’ meant. And that for you and I and our understanding of love compared with God’s concept of love is exactly the same. Although we’re learning…there’s still a great distance between our understanding of love…and what love means to Him! He doesn’t just ‘have’ love….He is love!!

Here’s what I learned; 

1) When you tell someone that you love them….it means to them what love means to them! 

 2) So when my little toddler said, “I yub oo too, Daddy”, it meant to me what love means to me! *That’s why I loved hearing it as much as I did. We have a need to be loved….and hearing it is important.

3) So, (It gets better!) when you tell the Father that you love Him…….it means to Him what love means to Him!!

4) So, as our understanding of love grows, and even if there’s a vast difference in our concept and His….keep telling the Father you love Him because I believe He really likes to hear it!!