I hope this email finds you well. I am currently enjoying some time of rest and vacation down in Florida with my parents, since we decided to close the restaurant for the month of January. It’s been a good time of refreshment and rest for me after a rather crazy year.

I will keep this musing short. I was so blessed and encouraged by our discussion we were able to have this past Sunday during our Zoom Sunday School class. We discussed a new video release by the Bible Project about “khesed”. Khesed is a Hebrew word that pops up all over the Old Testament and is typically translated as “steadfast love” or “goodness”. The Bible Project team likes to translate it to “loyal love”. As we discussed during Sunday School, the book of Ruth is a great example of khesed or loyal love. Ruth shows it to Naomi when she decides to leave her home and return with Naomi to her homeland. She had no real legal or even social obligation to Naomi, but Ruth acted out of a love that went above and beyond the social expectations at the time.

One explanation or interpretation for khesed that stuck with me is this idea that khesed is a generous love. We see this demonstrated over and over again as God chooses and sets apart people in the Old Testament, but they, of course, fail miserably. But, how does God respond? With a generous and loyal love. One of the first places we see the true nature of God spelled out in the Bible is in Exodus 34, when God talks to Moses as he is giving the 10 commandments. He tells Moses in verse 6, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness (khesed) and truth.”

My hope for myself and the church as a whole is that we will learn how to show this khesed love in a new and richer way in 2021. We have just walked through a year where face-to-face interaction and group gatherings were more limited than ever before. That means people are looking to receive this loyal and generous love more than ever before. I know I am. So that’s my goal for 2021: that I might learn more about the loyal and generous love of God, and, as a result, I’d be able to show it to others.

— Janelle Dienner