But God says our love matters more than sacrifices

Hosea 6:1-3, 6 Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces; now he will heal us. In just a short time he will restore us, so that we may live in his presence. Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him. … [The Lord says] I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.

Over the last week and a half, as we marked eleven years since Karis left us, I have re-read Karis: All I See Is Grace. I couldn’t remember which parts of her life—of the three thousand pages of my first draft—had made the editing cut and into the book. I hadn’t remembered how often she referenced this passage from Hosea.

To understand this, it’s necessary to know that Karis had a high view of God’s sovereignty. She believed that NOTHING happened without the permission of God. He, all-powerful and all-knowing, could end or cause anything at any time. Often, she believed, he did not act when he could have because he so honors human free will. He wants us to choose him of our own volition. He wants us to obey him because we love him, not from force or manipulation. He gives us more latitude in our choices than perhaps we are wise enough to handle. Yet we learn from our mistakes. Painful as their consequences may be, God doesn’t usually step in to shield us from the results of what we have chosen. But this doesn’t mean he doesn’t see, or know, or care what we are going through.

A harder concept for me is Karis’s belief that her birth defect, with all its mosaic of positive and negative impacts on her life, was chosen for her by God. That his purposes for her required the suffering she endured. That had she not spent so much time in clinics and hospitals, she would not have met the people with whom she was meant to share God’s love.

I tend to think that Karis was born without functional intestinal nerves not because God so willed, but because we live in a fallen, imperfect world in which this kind of thing can happen. The question for me is whether we allow God to act within our circumstances to accomplish his desire to love others through us.

Either way, it’s clear God longs for us to know him. To personally know his heart of love toward us. To put ourselves intentionally in the way of knowing him better, in every way we can “pressing on” to know him and to love him, not whatever image of him we have inherited or invented. This, for Karis, was her lifelong quest.

Sovereign by Chris Tomlin