Have you ever caught yourself agreeing out loud that God loves you, while some quieter part of you was still waiting for proof? You would say yes if someone asked you outright. But somewhere between the thing that did not go the way you hoped and the silence that followed it, a question found its way in anyway, and it has been sitting there with you since.
God opens the book of Malachi the same way.
I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?
(Malachi 1:2, KJV)
That is a striking place to begin a conversation. Not with a command, and not with a list of everything His people had gotten wrong, but with a declaration, and their honest reply is essentially, how have You loved us? God does not ignore the question. He answers it, before He goes on, later in the book, to confront what had gone wrong in their worship. The order matters. Love came first.
God’s opening declaration to Israel was not built on their emotional certainty about Him. And for us, the cross gives us an even clearer place to look when disappointment makes His love feel difficult to recognize. Our feelings may fluctuate. What God has demonstrated in Christ does not.
This is worth sitting with, because most of us do not announce our doubt the way Malachi’s audience did. We just go quiet. We stop expecting to feel close to Him and call that maturity. We assume that if we really trusted His love, we would not still be asking whether it is real. But the people in this passage asked the question out loud, and God stayed in the conversation long enough to answer it.
So if you have been carrying a version of wherein hast thou loved us, quietly, without saying it to anyone, you are allowed to bring it into the light instead. Not because saying it will suddenly make the season easier. Because the God who opened this book with I have loved you is not asking you to pretend you never doubted it. He is asking you to bring the question to Him and let Him answer it again.
Reflect
What is the honest question underneath your silence, the one you have not said out loud even to God?
Prayer
Father, I have not always said it, but there have been seasons where I wondered if You still loved me in the middle of my disappointment. Thank You that my standing with You was never built on my certainty. Answer the question I have been carrying quietly, the way You answered Your people. Remind me that what You demonstrated in Christ does not fluctuate the way my feelings do. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Before You Go
Say the honest question out loud today, even if it is only to God. He is not offended by it.