Above all things
by Chelsea Pietsch
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‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (Matthew 22:37).
What does it mean to love God with all my heart, soul, and mind? What does this look like? I certainly want to love God in this way, but I also find myself incapable of doing so. Am I easily distracted, or is this command just impossible?
In the search for an answer to these questions, I think about some of the things I love. If we reflect on the things we treasure here on earth, perhaps this will provide insight into what it means to love God wholeheartedly.
It strikes me that when we love something, we want to look at it, encounter it, and soak it in. We want to be in its presence.
I love flowers, especially fragrant ones. I love to look at them and smell them. Sometimes I even take the time to draw them. I love to bring them into my home and let the fragrance fill the house.
I also love my children. I love to look at their faces and observe how they react to different people or situations. I love to hear what they are thinking and see what they are doing. It is a joy to be in their presence, contemplating the mystery of who God has made them to be.
God invites us to love him more deeply than we love our earthly treasures. He invites us to meditate on him, to acknowledge his realness, and to speak to him. He invites us to encounter him in his word and to drink him in communion. He wants us to do this first and foremost.
This is not so much an instruction about what we have to do. It is an invitation to encounter God and to be in relationship with him.
When God draws us into his presence, we receive the one who is love. This experience of divine love transforms us. Only then can we start to practice what it means to love God above all things and to love our neighbour as ourselves.
Dear Lord, I long to be in your presence and to see you face-to-face. Call me to be in right relationship with you, to think of you, and long for you more than anything in this world. Amen.
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