Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21 has been a blessing to me, but it’s also slightly confusing. How are we supposed to grasp the full measure of God’s love for us when it’s beyond our ability to understand? An experience with my son can help answer that question.

My wife and I are in the process of potty training our little guy, which means that in the middle of the night I wake him up and let him know it’s okay. Then I gently lift him from his bed, set him down on the toilet, and smooth his sleep-tousled hair. When he’s done, I stand him on the bathroom rug so that he won’t be shocked at the touch of the cold tile under his feet. Finally, I lay him back down on his bed once more, making sure that his favorite “blankie” is firmly in hand.

But because this takes place so late at night, and my son is so sleepy, I doubt that he’ll remember these things I do for him. He may not even appreciate such things for years, until he has a similar experience.

God loves us in similar ways. He surrounds us with a thousand examples of love and care, both small and large (Ephesians 3:17-18). But because of the busyness of our lives, and our relative immaturity, we often miss these amazing displays of His deep love and care for us. We imagine instead that we endured the night all by ourselves, in our own strength, and we wake up none the wiser as to who truly carried us through the darkness.

God’s love for us is too vast for us to comprehend (Ephesians 3:19). His ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9), and His knowledge is too lofty for us to attain (Psalm 139:6). Even so, we can recognize by faith that our heavenly Father does much for us—things both seen and unseen.

NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13