Mostly What God Does

Picture yourself at three in the morning, scrolling through an endless stream of devastating headlines. Mass shootings, natural disasters, personal betrayals, global conflicts—the weight of human suffering pressing against your chest like a physical force. In these moments, many of us find ourselves asking the same piercing questions: Where is God in all this pain? How can we believe in divine love when the world feels so broken? What does faith even mean when everything seems to be falling apart?

These are not abstract theological puzzles—they are the raw, honest struggles of anyone who has ever tried to maintain hope in the face of overwhelming darkness. Whether you're faith-filled, faith-curious, or faith-wounded by past religious experiences, these questions matter because they touch the deepest parts of our human experience. The journey toward understanding God's love isn't about finding easy answers or comfortable platitudes. It's about discovering how to remain rooted in love even when life feels impossibly difficult. Through honest exploration of six essential pieces of faith—love, presence, praise, grace, hope, and purpose—we can begin to see that perhaps, just perhaps, the God we're seeking has been pursuing us all along.

At fifty-one years old, Savannah Guthrie got her first tattoo—something she never imagined doing. The words "All My Love" were carefully traced from her father's handwriting on a love letter he had written to her mother sixty years earlier. Her father had died suddenly when she was sixteen, and she had always carried the weight of his absence. When her son was born, she wanted to name him after her father but couldn't remember how to spell the nickname "Charley." Her mother produced the old letter from a forgotten box, and there it was: the signature that would solve the mystery and reveal something much deeper.

The discovery of that letter became more than a spelling guide—it became a revelation about the nature of God's love. Those three simple words, "All My Love," written in faded ink decades ago, captured what years of church attendance and biblical study had struggled to communicate. It was while reading Eugene Peterson's translation of Ephesians 5:1-2 that the connection crystallized: "Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you."

This simple phrase became revolutionary, reframing every question about God's character and intentions. Where is God and what is he up to? Mostly what God does is love you. What does God think about the choices you've made? Mostly what God does is love you. It's easy to conflate the critiques of parents, culture, or harsh self-judgments with God's voice, creating an image of an angry, judgmental deity waiting to deliver comeuppance. But what if the fundamental truth is simpler and more profound—that God's primary occupation is loving us, even when we can't feel it, even when circumstances suggest otherwise?

The power of this understanding transforms how we interpret every aspect of our lives, from seasons of spiritual closeness to times of distance and doubt. Rather than viewing God as disappointed when we fail to maintain perfect spiritual practices, we can see him as the one who provisions us for the journey ahead, whose love remains constant regardless of our performance or understanding.

A wise old pastor once shared God's telephone number during a church service: Jeremiah 33:3. "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." This seemingly simple promise contains profound comfort for anyone who has ever struggled with prayer, wondering if their words are reaching beyond the ceiling, if their scattered thoughts and wandering minds could possibly constitute meaningful communication with the divine.

Prayer often feels impossibly difficult. Our minds wander, transforming spiritual conversations into mental to-do lists. We're busy, distracted, tired, and sometimes uncertain whether it's working at all. But the beauty of God's presence is that it doesn't depend on our eloquence or focus. The Holy Spirit, according to Romans 8:26, "does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans." Sometimes the best we can do is simply show up—and surprisingly, that's enough. God can work with our mixed motives, our misery, and our spiritual mishigas, fashioning even our imperfect attempts into meaningful connection.

The story of Rodrigo in the film "The Mission" illustrates the transformative power of grace. A slave trader who kills his own brother in a rage, Rodrigo becomes consumed by guilt and despair. His penance involves dragging an enormous burden up a treacherous mountain to face the very people he had once enslaved. When he finally reaches the top, expecting death, the tribal leader cuts away his burden instead, sending it tumbling down the cliffs. The weight is released, the shame is severed, and mercy triumphs over judgment in a moment that captures the essence of divine forgiveness.

This scene reveals something crucial about how God's grace operates in our lives. We often carry our shame and failures like heavy packs strapped to our backs, convinced we must bear the weight of our mistakes indefinitely. But God's forgiveness is not about enduring enough suffering to earn redemption—it's about allowing him to cut the rope that binds us to our guilt and watching our burdens disappear forever.

Every morning begins with what could be called "The Overnight Note"—a relentless stream of devastating headlines that assault our consciousness before we've even finished our first cup of coffee. Mass shootings, natural disasters, political division, global conflicts, personal tragedies—the accumulated weight of human suffering can feel overwhelming. In a world where darkness seems to dominate the news cycle, how do we maintain hope? How do we find reasons for praise when everything around us appears to be falling apart?

The challenge isn't just external. Many of us carry internal weather systems that generate their own storms—anxiety, depression, fear, and that gnawing sense that calamity lurks just around the corner. These feelings can make praise feel not just difficult but almost offensive. Who are we to walk around grateful and joyful when so much pain exists in the world? Yet the biblical call to praise isn't about denying reality or pretending everything is fine. It's about choosing a perspective that acknowledges both the brokenness we see and the redemption we believe is possible.

The book of Job presents one of Scripture's most challenging narratives—a faithful man who loses everything through no fault of his own. Yet Job's story isn't ultimately about why bad things happen to good people; it's about maintaining faith when answers aren't available. Sometimes faith means choosing to live with our questions rather than abandoning hope altogether. As Nelba Márquez-Greene, who lost her six-year-old daughter in the Sandy Hook shooting, courageously declared: when she is reunited with Ana Grace, she wants to hear two things—"Well done, my good and faithful servant" and "Hi, Mom!"

This is the essence of hope: not the guarantee that suffering will end in this life, but the confidence that love is stronger than death, that justice will ultimately prevail, and that every tear will one day be wiped away. Hope doesn't minimize present pain—it places that pain within a larger story of redemption that gives meaning to our struggles and purpose to our perseverance.

The reluctance to share faith often stems from embarrassment—either about being too different from our peers or about being associated with the harsh, judgmental versions of Christianity that dominate public perception. Many believers keep their faith as a private matter, afraid of being seen as pushy evangelists or religious fanatics. Yet Paul's description of believers spreading "the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere" suggests a gentler, more natural approach to sharing spiritual truth.

True evangelism isn't about confronting strangers with bullhorns or cornering friends with theological arguments. It's about carrying the aroma that comes from spending time with God—love, acceptance, gentleness, forgiveness, authentic peace. Just as Mary's expensive perfume filled the house when she anointed Jesus' feet, the love we receive from God creates a fragrance that naturally permeates our interactions with others. We don't have to manufacture this presence or force it on anyone; we simply need to stay close enough to God that his essence becomes part of us.

The call to purpose goes beyond personal fulfillment or career success. It's about participating in God's Great Commission—being deputized as agents of divine love in a broken world. When we encounter suffering that seems to contradict the idea of a loving God, our response isn't to provide theological explanations but to become the tangible expression of God's care. For those who find it difficult to believe in an abstract deity, experiencing love through another human being may be the only way they can glimpse divine compassion.

This understanding transforms how we approach both our gifts and our limitations. Rather than seeing our imperfections as disqualifications from spiritual service, we can recognize them as opportunities for God to demonstrate his power through our weakness. The most profound purpose we can embrace is simply learning to love others the way God loves us—imperfectly, perhaps, but persistently and with growing compassion.

Standing at the communion table, holding the cup as people approach one by one, creates a profound awareness of human dignity and divine love. Each person who comes forward—confident or shy, joyful or sorrowful—receives the same words: "The blood of Christ, shed for you." The repetition feels anything but routine; instead, each interaction carries the weight of God's personal promise to that individual. There is no "other" in this moment, no separation between deserving and undeserving, no hierarchy of holiness. There is only the shared recognition that we are all beloved children of the same Father.

This experience of communion extends far beyond the sanctuary walls. Walking through city streets or riding public transportation, we can practice seeing people through God's eyes—recognizing that each person carries their own story of triumph and struggle, each bears the image of their Creator, each is known intimately by the one who formed them. Some faces intrigue us, others repel or frighten us, but all are recipients of the same divine love that we claim for ourselves. Our God is, fundamentally, a people person who maintains individual relationships with billions of souls simultaneously.

The challenge of community becomes more complex when differences divide us—theological, political, cultural, personal. Everything in our modern world seems designed to emphasize division and deepen distrust. Yet the commandment to love one another transcends these differences. We're not called to agree on everything or to minimize genuine concerns about harmful behaviors or beliefs. We're called to approach each other with love as our foundation, allowing God to carry the weight of judgment while we focus on being light in dark places.

Community is both God's gift to us and our gift to him. We gather not as perfect individuals but as works in progress, supporting each other through seasons of doubt and celebration, learning together what it means to be family. The sacred words "These are God's holy gifts for God's holy people" remind us that holiness isn't about perfection—it's about being set apart for love, chosen for connection, called into relationship with the divine and with each other.

The journey through faith's essential pieces reveals a stunning truth: God's primary occupation is loving us, even when circumstances make that love difficult to perceive or accept. Through stories of tattoos and telephone numbers, communion cups and morning headlines, we discover that faith isn't about having all the answers or maintaining perfect spiritual performance. It's about learning to recognize and receive the love that has been pursuing us all along, then allowing that love to transform how we see ourselves, our struggles, and our purpose in the world.

The six pieces—love, presence, praise, grace, hope, and purpose—aren't separate compartments of spiritual life but interconnected aspects of a single reality: we are known, cherished, and called by the God who inhabits our praises, answers our prayers, forgives our failures, sustains our hope, and invites us into his mission of spreading love throughout a broken world. Whether we come to faith as confident believers, curious seekers, or wounded skeptics, we can find in these truths both comfort for our deepest fears and challenge for our highest aspirations. The invitation remains constant: come as you are, receive what is freely given, and discover the joy of sharing that fragrance wherever life takes you.