"love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength."
I think most folks, especially Christians would say "Amen" to that. I mean, how could you really argue with it? It appears to be a nicely wrapped up, well polished, high gloss verse that makes us feel good right? Verse 37 is Jesus' response to the question asked of Him in verse 36; " teacher, what is the great commandment in the law?"
Looking at it a littler closer, it is Jesus' answer to being asked "what is THE most important thing we can do?"
If this is "the great commandment" that I as a christian am supposed to do I asked myself the question "do you love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength."
Honestly, and NOT to my surprise, the answer is "no." "No Ryan, you don't."
Don't leave me alone here...so stop here with me and ask yourself: "do you love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength."
Do you?
No. Really. Do you?
I hope you can honestly, I mean honestly answer that with a yes. If you can't, well you're not alone.
Everyone goes through seasons in a relationship where the warm and fuzzy feelings are more and less present. I would say it is humanly impossible to be in a relationship and always be on cloud 9. The distinction here is humanly. I "know" (not necessarily feel) that God has His hand on me daily and has so long before any of us took our first breath.
If I were just going through a season perhaps I wouldn't be so convicted by the question I asked myself. Seasons however, turn. What I have been forced to acknowledge is that I have had far too many seasons where the answer to the posed question is "No. No you don't." I have found myself in an ever solidifying climate of cognitive, relative obedience.
What the heck does that mean? In my mind I know that God is God, Jesus is His Son who's feet touched the same earth ours do. He was crucified and after being physically dead, was raised. And in His battered earthly body walked again. For what is probably a couple of years I have known about this the same way I know that when jumping a car battery, it is a really good idea not to connect the negative terminal of one car to the positive of the other. I "know" this and can tell other folks about but as far as it really affected my daily life, it doesn't. During and after incredible church services with core shaking messages and music would bring angels to tears am I not moved one bit to fall on the altar, to get on my knees and pray. Am I?
By relative obedience I mean that I "think" that (insert some random percentage which is probably lower than I can guess) of the time, I "know" the "right" things to do, and do them. What is more telling are the things I "know" to do, and don't or conversely, "know" not to do and do them anyway. At this moment I may be tempted to ask "yeah, but, aren't you a pretty stand up guy? You do this, and that, and the other that are all good? You go to church."
The answer to that? Um, maybe? That however, is one, not the question and two, something I think God is ultimately not very concerned with. After all, Jesus did not respond in verse 37 by saying "be as swell of a guy that you can." No. He gave a very clear and yes, tall order.
I absolutely have to get beyond the world's view, and even or especially my own created scale of how good, nice, great, moral, blah blah of a person I am. God could care less what someone else thinks of me (for my benefit anyway). God does care about how I view myself. There will always be trouble when the pendulum swings in "my favor" and putting me out in front of God. Maybe that is where I am now? I don't know. And just one thing about "going to" church. I believe more and more that God doesn't bat an eyelash at the fact that we "go to" church. I think the crux of the matter is what we do when we "go from" church.
What I do know is that I want to want to be able to answer yes to the question of the Great Commandment. I know that I should answer yes. I know that answering yes is the correct Sunday school answer in mixed company but is not the real answer.
Now I am not mad at God. I am not complaining about my life. Conversely, God has been over abundantly good to me and my family in spite of myself. I know that is a little out of place but felt I had to throw it in there.
How do I, or we, get passed this?
For starters I think I have to get passed myself. I mentioned earlier about not being moved to the altar, to kneel and pray, and then asked a question at the end of that. I'm not so sure I haven't been. I'm thinking that I actually have been so moved. I'm thinking that God has nudged me in such ways and after quick and careful analysis, I concluded that the prompted action was unnecessary. Yes, that's right. I concluded that something God wanted me to do was unnecessary. Come on...I know some of you are with me on this.
In the book "Primal" the author says "you cannot just listen to half of what the Holy Spirit has to say. Its a package deal. If you aren't wiling to listen to everything He has to say, you won't hear anything He has to say."
I have found that to be true and compounding. The more I listen, and obey, the more I hear. The less I listen, and obey, the less I hear. Can I just admit that? If you have found any commonality with anything I've said can you just admit that? Can we admit that there is often a strong relationship between how much we see and hear God to how vigilantly we listen and look for Him? It isn't about whether He exists, is active or involved in our lives, it is whether we look, listen, obey and acknowledge that He is.
I have a discipline problem. I have often approached my relationship with God with the same discipline I have approached exercise with. Short lived and when all else falls into place and it is convenient to do it. And of course, after a steady decline in frequency thus not yielding any visible results, I figure, what's the point and I stop. I can only pray that as I age my body will be a fraction as forgiving for my lack of discipline as God is with me. If I decided to be a vegan and approached it with the same determination I approach my relationship with God I would be a vegan for a week, then a vegetarian, then I'd be onto fish, then chicken and steak within 2 months.
I need to listen. I need to act. I have done so. I know what it feels like. For me, if I find myself arguing away doing something "nice" for someone because it doesn't make sense, it makes me feel uncomfortable, someone else will think I'm weird, the opportunity is right in front of me, my anxiety goes up as I'm debating this out of nowhere strange prompting, yup, that's me trying to ignore God again. And if I may pat myself on the back here...I've gotten good at that. Not something to be proud of. I'm thankful that God knows this about me and continues to present opportunities for me to serve him.
I am thankful for this book "Primal" and the friends that I am walking through it with for being a catalyst to focus my attention back to The only book that I really need to strengthen my relationship with God, to focus on The Great Commandment, and to start on a journey of climate change.
Until sometime in the future - Dayenu.
