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Maybe I Expected Too Much from *God Gave Us Love*

by Steve Adler

August 20, 2012

@steveadlersays

God Gave Us Love is the conversation Grampa Bear has with Little Cub as they walk back from a fishing trip. He explains that God wants us to love everyone and find something good to love about them - even when we don't necessarily like them. And even though there are different kinds of love, we should show love to everyone.

Admittedly, children's books are not my specialty, but I've read lots to my kids. I expected this one to tell more of a story. The story is told in the pictures and scenery as you turn pages. Most of the content is conversation, which is not a bad thing, but it's hard for a small child to get what's going on; this is a drawback since that's the intended audience for this book. The artwork is great, though. Detailed and colorful, I still will have no problem reading this to my kids.

At the end, however, there will be a little clean-up to be done, since there is one paragraph as the book winds down, that is not altogether inaccurate, but incomplete. "Because God loved us that much, we won't ever be separated from him." Belief, faith, and repentance are all left out of Grampa Bear's "gospel." A simple reading would teach that God loves us so much that we'll all be with him forever because of his love, but this leaves out a crucial aspect of God's redeeming love - that it saves us because his own son stood in our place for sin.