Most days I wake to a song in my heart. It may be a song that I heard the day before. It may be one that has some special meaning to me. I slowly awaken as I listen to the words and my first few conscious thoughts will follow along with it’s message. It’s usually a different song each morning, but in the last week or so I have heard the same song over and over.

It’s a song by Third Day called I Believe. Here are some of the lyrics, specifically the ones I hear as I awaken each morning.

I believe in a faith that’s strong/ I believe in a hope that carries on/ I believe in these things and more/ Most of all… I believe in love.

As I awaken to these words playing in my heart, my first thought is always the same. It is the scripture 1 John 4:16.

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (KJV)

For the last 14 years I have helped many people in their hardest times, in their darkest hours. I’ve helped many, including myself and my own family find peace and hope in not only difficult times but in just living everyday life. After all these years the greatest truth I have found to help regardless of the situation is this, God loves us.

Whether the situation was the loss of a job, the breakup of a family, or a terminal diagnosis my advise started out the same, first and foremost know and believe that He loves you.

Where is the hope and the peace in finding yourself out of work, “I may not know how it’s going to be okay, but I have no doubt it’s going to be okay because He loves me.”

Where is the hope and the peace when your family is falling apart, “I may not know how my family will rise above this, but I know we will because He loves us.”

Where is the hope and the peace in being diagnosed with any disease, “God said ‘by His stripes I was healed’ and I’m not sure how it all works, but I know it’s going to be okay because the One Who said this loves me.”

There are so many things and so many people out there saying believe in this thing, in this ‘truth’, or believe in this person, but today first and foremost believe in this, believe that you are loved by God.

I may not know the difficulty  you are going through today, but He does. I may not know the answer to your problem, but He does. The one thing I do know about you is this, I know and I believe that He loves you. Today, He wants you to believe it too.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10, KJV)

But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us. (Romans 5:8, Amplified)

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear… (1 John 4:18, KJV)

And now abide faith, hope, love these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13, NKJV)

For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten… Son… (John 3:16, Amplified)

For God so greatly loved and dearly prized you…