“The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other

‘Why do you love me?’ Requiring repeated assurances, a girl prompts her sweetheart. She never tires of hearing him list her many attractions. In this she is not unique. In relationships, both sexes assume that personal qualities of their own have won the interest and affection of their opposite. It is natural to assume that the same dynamic applies in divine/human relations. It does not. God does not take up with us because we caught his eye; because we impressed him somehow. He is our God and we are his people for no other reason than that he loved us. The cause of our experience of God lies in God, and nowhere else.