God’s Love is Not Like a Bank Account

I don’t remember when I first heard the saying, “Nothing you do can make God love you more, and nothing you do can make God love you less,” but I do remember that it made me sad. I was a little confused by my reaction, because I knew that it was supposed to be reassuring. It was supposed to let me know that God’s love was unfailing, unchangeable, always reliable. But instead it left me feeling kind of distant. In retrospect, I think what I heard was a less appealing message: God’s love is impersonal. Who you are, and what you do, fundamentally doesn’t matter.

So I don’t like that saying, even though I think I agree with what it’s trying to convey, which I hear as being that you can’t mess up so much that God will stop loving you, and that you can’t be so good that you earn bonus points in the form of extra love. But I feel like putting it that way doesn’t capture the profound dynamism of God’s love. It makes it sound like something static, like there’s a certain set amount of it in the bank, and that’s that. For all eternity, the balance will never go up or down.

But I don’t think that God’s love for you fits in that framework. It’s not a set thing that can be quantified. It won’t ever falter, but that doesn’t mean that it’s only out there as sort of abstract force permeating the universe. It’s deeply, deeply personal. It’s intimate. It’s the ground of the completely unique relationship that God has with you as an individual. That means that it may show up differently today than it did yesterday, because you are a different person today. And importantly, it’s responsive. What you do matters—which is not to say that you ever risk losing God’s love, but simply that you are part of a real relationship. And in real relationships, both parties affect one another. What you do matters to God partly for the simple reason that you matter to God. This isn’t a dance in which you move while God stays absolutely fixed in place. God’s love is reliable and stable, but that doesn’t mean it holds still. It tirelessly accompanies you, continually and creatively adapting to where you are, and what you need.

My other objection to this saying is that it makes it sound like there’s a limit on God’s love for you that God won’t ever go beyond. Again, that turns God’s love into something quantifiable. But I don’t think that you can do things to get God to love you more for the simple reason that it would not be possible for God to love you more than God already does. Right now, at this exact moment, there is no limit to God’s love for you. Wherever you are, whatever is going on with you, that will never not be true.

---

“The Hour Before Sunrise” discusses matters of faith and spirituality, as well as issues related to mental health, and occasionally other random topics. This is a public post, so feel free to share it. And if you want to see more of and support my writing, please do subscribe (it's free!). Thanks for reading!