I don’t know who does it, but someone pushes the “repeat” button and I sometimes hear the same song over and over in my mind. I can usually get another tune playing unless the looping piece is one of a few greatest hits. In this event, it plays again and again until it oozes through my pours and I hum along.

 For the last several weeks I’ve been hearing, “The Love of God.” Occasionally—when no one is around besides Dianne who promised to stay with me “for better or worse”—I’ll sing. Mostly I hum or whistle,

 Could we with ink the ocean fill, / And were the skies of parchment made, / Were every stalk on earth a quill, / And every man a scribe by trade; / To write the love of God above / Would drain the ocean dry; / Nor could the scroll contain the whole, / Though stretched from sky to sky. (Lehman, “The Love of God.”)

 I dismissed the love of God for many years. God loved me because He had to love me. To do otherwise would discount His basic quality. So while appreciative of His love, I wasn’t moved to love in return—except of course as was required to keep my stated reputation in tact at church.

 Today, I love God. I love Him with all my heart and soul possess. I sing about it when I’m naked in the shower and hum it in puffs when I’m working out. What changed?

 I’d like to report the change occurred in me, and that with great humility I bowed low before God, completely undone, and thanked Him for loving me, a man of irretrievable uselessness to Him, fraught with woeful failures, and pitifully in need of His loving mercy. But that’s not the way it happened.

God initiated instead—loved me when unlovable, resistant to His overtures, suspicious of His every intent—and demonstrated His love. I was familiar with “talked about love” in religious circles, but God “demonstrated His love.” It is what CS Lewis calls “divine humility,” to have us as His own when our own is not worth having.

 There was the demonstrated love of God in forgiving my sins, transforming me, and promising me an eternal destiny. I got this from going to church—or, I got most of it; the “transformed” part got lost in translation. In all candor, I wasn’t all that fired up (pun intended) about spending eternity with God. It was just better than the alternative. So, I took from Him what I needed and tolerated “being with Him for eternity” because it was a package deal.

 As my arrogance dulled, I noticed God seemed to like me. What’s that about, I wondered? I don’t like Him, why would He like me? He persisted, but He didn’t force. Slowly, carefully, thoughtfully God reframed His love as demonstrable like. I started getting the picture: He didn’t love me because He had to, He liked me because He wanted to, and because He liked me, He hung around and promised to never leave me. All of this He verbalized as, love.

 The “never leave” part is what got my attention. He stayed with me because He wanted to. In a mystical—loving—way, He believed He was happier with me than without me, so much so, He would rather die than live without me.

 Over time, He won my heart, not with His love, but with His like.

 For me, I liked Him before I loved Him, and now my heart sings.