Love First

I listened to a podcast today that helped me quite a bit in sorting things out that I have been thinking about regarding my faith. The God Journey podcast is one of the few podcast that I listen to and it has been okay, but today it really spoke to me. I was listening to one titled "Kindness and Severity". I know that there are those out there who would criticize Wayne Jacobson and Brad Cummings as having a love only view of God and I have been wrestling with how that works with what I read in the bible. In this podcast they did a good job of explaining that they do believe in a God of judgment and "severity" but the point they had was that we need to start with God's love because that is where the severity of God comes from. I think the point they were making is that if we KNOW that God LOVES and live in that LOVE then the severity comes from love. I don't feel like I am doing it justice, but it is similar to the book I am reading by Brennan Manning titled The Furious Longing of God where contradictory terms are used to describe God. It seems like we want to separate who God is when in fact He is love first and love always even though that includes love with judgment, love with fury, love with... I have found myself in the past wanting God to be the mean God of judgment with people I had already judged rather than loving them as God loves me. The bible says "God is Love" so everything He does is motivated by love. Unless I am mistaken I don't think the bible ever says "God is Judgement", "God is wrath" etc. He is love, His very being is love and I may never completely understand how God's love and wrath go together, but there is no question that they both describe God. I think maybe it helps me to just know that God is Love and everything he does comes from this crazy about me love...even when it doesn't make sense or it even hurts.
I hope this whole post doesn't sound too convoluted.
K