God does not love populations, He loves people. He loves not masses, but men. He loves us all with a mighty love that has no beginning and can have no end. -A. W. Tozer
The worst nightmare of many Alaskans is to find themselves between a sow and her cubs. It is one of the most dangerous and life-threatening wildlife predicaments a person can encounter in the last frontier. The drive to protect her cubs runs so deep that the sow will do whatever it takes to eliminate the potential for danger, even if it means imminent death.
As a mom, I have experienced a strong, overwhelming urge to protect my son from even the slightest of hurts. As the sow protects her cubs, we too have the primal urge to protect those we care about. The term "mama bear" has become a common phrase in today's society and refers to someone who loves another fiercely, at all costs.
Where did this genetic disposition for protecting those we love come from? How did something like love become so deeply ingrained in our very being that we would be willing to give our lives for those closest to us? My belief is that when God made people in His image, He gave us the ability to love. We cannot love fully or completely because that is a feat only He can do, but we are able to experience love in a smaller degree. 1 John 4:7 says that, "love comes from God," and 1 John 4:19 says, "We love because He first loved us."
The world often turns love into something that we must earn or deserve, but that is not the love of God. The love of God is undeserved, unearned, and unexplainable. As a parent loves their child, our Creator loves His creation- us- only on a much grander scale.
From God's other known attributes we may learn much about His love. We can know, for instance, that because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning; because He is eternal, His love can have no end; because He is infinite, it has no limit; because He is holy, it is the quintessence of all spotless purity; because He is immense, His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats confused and abashed. -A. W. Tozer
How encouraging is it to know that God loves us more than we could ever love anyone or anything? That the deep, fierce love that we feel for our loved ones is just a taste of the depths of love that God has for us? We know that His love is real because He sent His only son, Jesus, to die for our sins. (John 3:16)
Coming between a sow and her cub is dangerous, and experiencing the wrath of a mom is unpleasant, but standing in the way of God's love and His children is impossible. Nothing can separate us from God's love. (Romans 8:38-39) That, my friend, is fierce love.
Help us to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has found us. Then love will cast out fear; and our troubled hearts will be at peace, trusting not in what we are but in what Thou has declared Thyself to be. -A. W. Tozer