My family loves dinosaurs. It started with my husband when he saw “Jurassic Park” at what was probably much too young an age. Since then, it has spread from a dinosaur collection in our home to a love of dinosaurs in our three girls. This is why it was incredibly exciting for all of them to hear that the water we drink today is the same water the dinosaurs drank thousands of years ago. Earth has a finite amount of water that gets cycled again and again in various forms. Sometimes it’s in the land, sometimes it’s rain, sometimes it’s in our bodies, but it’s always the same amount of water. Ultimately, while we can manipulate water, we can never create more or less water on earth.

God’s love for us is similar. I have spent much of my life preaching grace for others and yet struggling to accept grace for myself. More recently, I realized that my struggle was not just with grace, but with love. While I understood God’s love for me, I hadn’t fully accepted it. I still believed that I needed to be good enough to make Him happy or to earn His love. Surely, Jesus loves me, but maybe not the parts of me that are selfish, prideful, and prone to anger and perfectionism. Those parts of me needed to be worked on. Those parts were something to be ashamed of. Each time I felt the wave of embarrassment because of my short words or hurt pride, I would deem myself a failure as a wife, a mother, a pastor, a Christian. I could accept God’s love for the parts of me I deemed worthy, but not the parts that kept messing up. Why would He accept less than perfection?

The problem with this line of thinking is that it neglects the cross. God did not wait for us to have our act together. He did not come only for the righteous. Paul writes, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8). Christ died for the thoughts and attitudes I try to hide away. He died because He loved me as I was and He still loves me as I am. His love for me can never be increased or decreased. It is unwavering. There’s nothing I can do to make Him love me more or less. It’s not dependent on my character because love is who He is. He chooses to love me as I am. Today, I choose not to drown in sin and secret shame. I do this not to be good enough for God, but because His unlimited love inspires me to love myself as He does. Turn your eyes to the Lord and see Him gazing at you in love.

Engage

• Are there places in your life where you struggle to accept God’s love for you? Why is that?
• Spend time in solitude with the Lord today. Let His lavish love wash over you.

Supporting Scripture

“For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then my faithful love for you will remain” (Isaiah 54:10).

Quotable

“If I know what love is, it is because of you”(Hermann Hesse).

Photo: JoeLena/Getty Images | This article was originally titled “A Dinosaur Water Type of Love” in the March 2026 issue of The War Cry.