Brad looks up from the stack of envelopes. “Well, who says you have to?”
I sigh. I’ve been reading a friend’s writing, and her love for God, her stark, raw passion for Jesus is so evident on the page, it takes my breath away. It also leaves me feeling…lacking. Inadequate. Less than. Afraid.
“I just worry,” I admit. “I just worry that my faith isn’t real, because I don’t feel that kind of love, that exuberant, bursting passion. I feel like…I don’t know…I sort of feel like I’m faking it. Like I’m a big faith fraud. ”
“Well then I’m faking it, too, because I don’t go around feeling all wildly in love with Jesus either,” says Brad.
“Yeah,” I tell him, laughing, resting my chin in my hands. “That’s what I say to make myself feel better: ‘Well hey, look at Brad…and he’s still got faith…he’s still okay.’”
Yesterday in church Pastor Sara preached on Matthew 22: 36-40, in which Jesus explains the most important commandment:
“You must love the lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: love your neighbor as yourself.”
It’s the heart part of that commandment that trips me up. I get loving God with my brain. I sort of get loving God with my soul. But with “all my heart”? That sounds a lot like “wildy smitten” to me. And I’m not good with wildly smitten.
- Surrender your desires to God
- Know that God is working to transform you
- Practice spiritual disciplines like reading the Bible, prayer and worship
- Practice the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control)
- Share your faith journey with authentic community
Not exactly a wild and crazy declaration of love, is it?
According to Pastor Sara, loving God with all my heart looks pretty practical: surrender, know, practice and share.
In fact, I do most of these things pretty regularly — or at least I try to. But I’ve always considered most of these as acts of obedience, rather than expressions of love.
My conversation with Brad and Pastor Sara’s sermon both reminded me of Gary Chapman’s book, Love Languages, which describes five basic ways couples demonstrate love: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, physical touch.
I suspect that a practical, acts-of-service type love is how I best express my love for God, too: obedience as an expression of love. It’s not a wild, tear-brimming passionate expresson. You’ll never hear me say I’m smitten with God.
But it’s love just the same.
What about you? What love language best describes your love for God?
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