A few days ago, as I was reading the talks from the April 2022 General Conference, I came across this statement by Elder Kevin S. Hamilton: “Even God’s love, although infinite and perfect, is also subject to conditions. For example: ‘If ye keep my commandments [then] ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.’”
That statement made me stop and think. How can God’s love be simultaneously infinite and universal, and also conditional? This idea creates some dissonance in my mind. It is hard to comprehend—yet it is also demonstrably true. I know in my bones that God loves all His children; Elder Holland put it marvelously when he said, “The first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength. That love is the foundation stone of eternity, and it should be the foundation stone of our daily life.” But it is also clear to me that many people do not feel this love, do not see it manifest in their lives. I keep reading about the growing epidemics of loneliness and anxiety in the US, particularly among the young, with sharp increases in depressive episodes, ER visits, self-harm, and even suicide rates. If God loves us all infinitely - and I know that He does - then why are so many people having trouble feeling this love?
When people talk about God‘s love being universal, they often cite this scripture, from Matthew 5:45, about how Heavenly Father “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”
I do think that verse captures a beautiful truth about the love of God and how He desires to bless all of us as much as He can. But as I was studying Deuteronomy this week, I was struck by another passage, which seems to me to get at the essence of the the difference between simply being a loved child of God, and choosing, by covenant, to abide in His love. As the Israelites are about to enter Canaan, Moses reminds them, in Deuteronomy 11:10-12, of the difference between their life in Egypt and their life as it shall be in the promised land, if they keep the commandments:
“For the land, wither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs:
But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven:
A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year...
I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.
And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full.”
In many ways, life in the land of Egypt, where every plant that grows is the result of the deliberate nurturing and struggle of the individual, is not a bad one. Indeed, the transformation of any seed into a plant is a miracle and a blessing. Such a life can be filled with meaningful hard work, dignity, and the satisfaction of a job well done. But life has a way of knocking you off your feet sometimes (or time after time after time), and when that happens, what a difference it makes to know that your life is “a land which the Lord thy God careth for [and that] the eyes of the Lord are always upon [you]’’; that the nourishing rain in your life falls by His particular direction and not just by general providence. Surely that is what it means to receive God’s grace and abide in His love.
Elder Bednar recently described how keeping God’s commandments and covenants helps us feel His love more fully. He said,
“Entering into sacred covenants… [yokes] us with and bind[s] us to the Lord Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. This simply means that we trust in the Savior as our Advocate and Mediator and rely on His merits, mercy, and grace during the journey of life... As we honor the conditions of sacred covenants and ordinances, we gradually and incrementally are drawn closer to Him and experience the impact of His divinity and living reality in our lives.. [these connections] are the ultimate sources of assurance, peace, joy, [and] spiritual strength.”
I do not have the words to describe adequately —maybe I don’t even understand fully—how much more deeply one can feel God’s love by keeping His commandments. But even from the outside, it seems clear that some people are able to find peace and joy despite devastating shocks and sorrows.
There are many such examples, but one that comes to mind here is a story Elder Christofferson told about Jack Rushton, who became paralyzed from the neck down in a bodysurfing accident while on vacation with his family. He lived with this paralysis for the next 23 years, serving faithfully as a stake patriarch. This is what he said in an interview:
“Problems will come into all of our lives; it’s part of just being here upon this earth. And some people think that religion or having faith in God will protect you from bad things. I don’t think that’s the point. I think the point is that if our faith is strong, that when bad things happen, which they will, we‘ll be able to deal with them. … My faith never wavered, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t have depressions. I think for the first time in my life, I was pushed to the limit, and literally there was nowhere to turn, and so I turned to the Lord, and to this day, I feel a spontaneity of joy.”
I love his words, “a spontaneity of joy.” What we have to look forward to through the trials of life, if we keep our covenants, is neither an unremitting, hopeless struggle against an overwhelming tide, nor merely a quiet, resigned, placid existence, but a life of patient, hope-filled discipleship punctuated by spontaneous joy.
Divine love is conditional, maybe because God will not force us to choose Him as our God. We are free to live as the children of Israel did in Egypt, and be ruled by our own natures, our own appetites, desires, and passions. But if we do, we will never understand just how the Lord “loveth those who will have him to be their God.” (1 Ne 17:40) That sort of relationship requires our very natures to be changed—if we keep His commandments, then “when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2) Becoming as He is will require that we seek him with all our heart and with all our soul—but such whole-souled devotion is no more than He has already given us.
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