As I sat holding my hot coffee on this warm summer morning, facing a circumstance that feels like a grand chasm of hurt, I heard Jesus ask me this:

“Is my love not enough for you?”

The question caught me off guard. There was no tone of disappointment or judgment, but there was hurt. It felt like the kind of pain only unrequited love can hold.

It brought me to my knees and filled my eyes with tears.

I knew two things simultaneously:

#1 – There is no contest. His love will always be enough – it is the strongest and most real love in existence. That will always be where my heart lands in the end.

#2 – I knew the pain in the voice of Jesus in that moment came from the truth that my heart wants more than his love today.

So, I said to Jesus something like “Of course it is. And . . . I know that you will always love me, but . . .”

It’s not that I don’t think God’s love is the most valuable thing.
It’s not that I take the love of God for granted. Not really . . .
It’s not that I don’t trust him . . . at least . . . I don’t think it is . . .

Although if I was honest enough with myself . . . I might admit those things may be true sometimes – much of the time.

The truth is we live in more than one reality as followers of Jesus. We are eternal citizens of Heaven and are embodied on this Earth at once. This can be disorienting and make it difficult to differentiate the true nature of our experience.

Does trusting Jesus mean that I disregard my present pain? Is God asking me to ignore or push down my human need? Does trusting God mean my human experience and earthly circumstances are too temporary to care about?

I think the enemy of my heart would like me to think the answer to those questions is yes, but that would be a damaging false dichotomy.

Jesus reminded me today about a woman named Martha whose story is found in the Gospel of John, chapter 11.

Martha’s brother, Lazarus, had passed away. Martha believed in the power of Jesus to heal – because she’d seen it. She knew that he was able to do anything – even bring her brother back from the brink of death. Which is why she was so confused that Lazarus had died when they knew Jesus.  

There are two lines in their conversation echoing in my heart today:

Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.”

 “Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.”

Martha’s answer sounds like mine.
Of course, there is hope later, but . . . that doesn’t change anything now.
Of course, your love is enough for me forever, but . . . what about how I feel today?

Martha didn’t have the imagination that the love and power of God, alive for eternity, could also touch today. She forgot, as I often do, that God is everywhere, all at once. He is present in the future when all the dead things rise. He is present now, with our grieving and wounded hearts.

God isn’t asking us to choose. He’s asking us to see that he is the source of both the future hope and the present healing. He is the only way to experience heaven, then and now. And – this is the kicker – he isn’t keeping hope, healing, and heaven from us.

It’s not that choosing to trust Jesus resigns me to an earthly fate of loss and lack while waiting for it to all be made right. Choosing to trust Jesus re-orients me to the truest reality – that Earth fits within Heaven. That our present pain is held inside the arms of our future hope.

That the only real way to feel loved at all is to know how loved we are by God. It reshapes all human love as a response to one who is Love, Himself. It gives grace to our lack. It fills chasms with hope.

Because the only truth is this: There is no such thing as “more” than the love of Jesus.

So today, the love of Jesus is enough for me. It’s the only love that has ever been and will always be.