Loving God

How can we return love to a God who has shown us so much love?

     When you truly love someone, whether it's your grandchildren, children, spouse, siblings, parents or just a good friend, you offer expressions of your love through gifts, by spending time with them, fixing their favorite foods or just giving them a hug. There are so many creative ways that we can show our affection to those we love, but how do we show our Heavenly Father that we return His love?

     A number of years ago, as I was praying, I imagined myself climbing up onto God's lap. He invites us to spend time with Him and since Jesus portrayed God as a Father, it's easy to imagine sitting on our Heavenly Father's lap and telling Him about our concerns or just resting quietly in His loving arms. (I think He really likes that best.)

     As I imagined myself as a child resting in her father's arms, it occurred to me that I'd like to give Him a big hug. My mind knows that physically it's impossible to hug God, but my spirit told me that I should just do it. And so I pictured myself turning around in His lap, reaching up to hug His neck and then whispering in His ear, "I love you." 

     I have never forgotten the way it made me feel to hug God's neck and tell Him about my love for Him and I know that He was pleased with me that day. I never saw His face but I know He was smiling when I hugged Him. Afterwards I got to thinking that God created mankind specifically to have a relationship with us. I don't think He's lonely, God is self-sufficient and really doesn't need anything from anybody, but I wonder how often we show Him signs of affection. 

     I realize that we often praise Him with songs and words of adoration, we thank Him for the blessings He has given us and sometimes we even thank Him for the trials in our lives which bring us closer to Him, but do we ever really profess our love to Him? 

     "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." Deuteronomy 6:4-5 NIV

     "And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?" Deuteronomy 10:12-13 NIV

     "Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments'." Matthew 22:37-40 NIV

     How do we love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength? I looked up the definitions of those words and this is what I discovered. The heart is thought of as the place where emotions are felt, so if we love God with our all heart it means that we are emotionally tied to Him. Our soul is the spiritual part of a person that is believed to give life to the body and in many religions is believed to live forever. As Christians, we truly believe that God created us to be eternal beings and that our faith in Jesus Christ grants us eternal life with God. Therefore, loving God with all our soul is agreeing to trust Him with our spiritual being both now and throughout eternity. The mind is a part of a person that thinks, reasons, feels and remembers. Loving God with our mind takes the most effort because we actually need to think about Him on a daily basis and our mind can help us remember all that He has done for us and be grateful to Him. The dictionary describes strength as the quality or state of being physically strong or the ability to resist being moved or broken by a force. Loving God with our strength sometimes requires being physically strong but it also means that we have a strong conviction or faith in Him.

     God knows that we have responsibilities and jobs to perform, He knows that we have earthly duties to tend to and can't spend all our time in His presence. He expects us, as His children, to love Him by living our lives knowing that He is near to us at all times. Remembering that He is available to help us and doing our earthly tasks in the strength He gives us by His grace is one way we can show love to Him.

     Use your heart, soul, mind and strength as you show your love to the God of the Universe and He will smile as you give Him a spiritual hug.