God is Love.

Jesse is two. And at the moment, he's started doing something I hope he never grows out of.

Out of nowhere, at the most random moments, he'll look up and say, "I love you." Except it comes out "I wuve you."

He might be halfway through breakfast. He might be driving a toy car along the back of the sofa. There's no buildup and no reason. He just says it.

Theo does it too. Between the two of them, I think I hear it every single day at the moment, and never once at a point I could have predicted. They're such sweet boys.

I know it won't always be like this. One day "love you" will be the quick bit at the end of phone calls. Still true, still meant, but fleeting.

So I'm treasuring every unprompted one while they last.

This week, somewhere between two of those little "I wuve you"s, I started thinking about my own prayers.

I pray every day. My prayers are full of thank You, because there's so much to be grateful for. There's plenty of asking in there too, and worship.

But just telling God I love Him? For no reason, in the middle of an ordinary moment, the way my boys do?

Honestly, not often enough.

The boys say it for a simple reason: they've heard it a thousand times. They're echoing what's been poured into them.

John says the same about us: "We love him, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). And behind that sits the bigger truth: "God is love" (1 John 4:8).

Not God is loving, as one quality among many. Love is who He is.

Today, I wanted to remind you of how God feels about you.

God is madly in love with you.

Not mildly fond of you. Not tolerating you.

He thought of you before there was a world for you to stand on.

He knows the number of hairs on your head, the worries you haven't said out loud, the version of you that you hide from everyone else, and He loves you with a love that has never once flickered.

He isn't waiting for you to get your act together to say it.

He said it first, and He's been saying it your whole life.

The cross is God saying it as loudly as it can be said.

You are loved.

Deeply, fiercely, permanently loved. By Love Himself.

So today, I hope you can take a few minutes to receive His love.

To know that it is true.

And join me in saying, "Lord, I 'wuve' You too."