How Do You Love?

I have stumbled across a great blog. Now, I am subscribed to more great blogs than I can handle, but me being an addicted reader, I cannot help but take on more reading than I can handle. Occasionally, I get close to being caught up in my blog curriculum (*key word to note here is occasionally) but that is personal problem of mine I do suppose.

My somewhat recent addition to my blog collection is Fancy Little Things. This blog is a great blog for all women but is especially designed for women of the faith. As I was playing catch up with my blog notifications, I came across a new article of theirs, and let me tell you, the title was EXACTLY what I needed! The blog is titled "5 Tips for New Bloggers". GOLD! This newbie to the blogging world was stoked. So, I clicked the link and read.

Now, out of the 5 tips, I am only really moved by one of them. (*I am purposely staying away from tip 2...Write Often. If you look at how long I take between posts, you will see that tip 2 is intimidating so we are going to pretend it does not exist for now....). Tip 1 was the tip that had me thinking the most. This tip is tip 1 and rightfully numbered. Be Passionate. This tip is for blogging about the things you are passionate about. Things that make you you. Oh. What options! Now, we all know how this ends, because before I ever read this article, I knew what I primarily set this blog to be about. I blogged about this within my first few posts. My passion, my purpose, my thrill....Christ. Our Savior.

This point, I have rewritten once and debated on multiple times as to what direction I want to head down next. Do I tell you a little bit about my journey? I think I save that for another day because when I envisioned this post, I envisioned it heading down a different course. So let's continue, because dear brothers and sisters, if I veer off course now, it would be a never ending cycle and we could very well end up in Never-Never Land by the time I am done.

I have had the vision of this post for awhile, but battled with how to start it. Then, I read "5 Tips for New Bloggers" and God provided my intro. Passion. What does passion look like? The best definition I could find  is in Matthew. "Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind'" Matt. 22:37, NKJV. Wow! What a profound statement! If that is not a strong enough verse alone, keep in mind that it is also repeated 2 other times in the Bible (Deut. 6:5; Luke 10:27)!

God tells us to love Him with all  of our heart. This is where we "store" our feelings, as we like to think. We love our husbands, kids, family with our "whole heart". We identify love to being stored in our heart. It is the unit that encompasses our love. We are to love our Lord with ALL of our heart. Every last ounce of love, we are to give it to God.

We are also to love Him with all of our soul. Our soul is more than the ghostly image we like to imagine exists in us, it is our very being. It is what makes us us. It identifies you as who you are. Those other passions you have, those people and items that make you get up in the morning, those are driven by your soul. And we are to love God with our whole soul. Luke 10:27 tells us to also love God with all of our "strength". So, we should not only love God with our very being, but with also all that we have! Our whole being is to love Him. In all that we do, we are to love Him in everything. "in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" 1 Thess. 5:18, NKJV. In everything. At our job, while we cook, when we drive, when we are reading, we are called to love Him and thank Him.

Love Him with all of our mind. We are to be loving God even in our thoughts. How do you love your spouse  and children in your thoughts? You only think things that would honor them. You think about them often. Think of things you could do to bring them joy. God wants that. Jesus calls us to do this. In our day to day lives, we are to think of God. Honor God in our thoughts. Think of ways to glorify and praise Him. We are to make our mind about God.

So, we are to love God with every ounce of love, make our life about Him, and think things that glorify Him? That is a lot to do! How do we do this as well as work our jobs, prepare meals, keep the house presentable, raise children (in our case a puppy that is wayy to cute), and still spend time with family and friends? We practice. We change our views. We start by praying more and more everyday (1 Thess. 5:17), singing hymns in the car on our way to work (Eph. 5:19), and read your Bible daily (Psalms 1:2). Then, it all becomes habit and starts happening naturally.

For me, I had to find something in my life that always kept me motivated. That was time consuming. It didn't take long before I realized what had been the most time consuming activity in my life for awhile was school. I would spend HOURS on homework. Doing coursework, studying. I would turn down watching the next episode of a show with friends because I had that paper to write. I would stay up way later than I should to cram in that extra bit of studying and sacrifice my hours of sleep (*Thus leading to living off of an amount of sleep that no human being should have to do....man do I NOT miss college sometimes). Now, let me back up and say I do not think God wants us to live off of 3 hours of sleep but I do think He wants that passion. Not to mention, this life is for God. We are here for Him. If He is our life, why would we not want to take a break from that T.V. Show and take a few moments to pray, to worship Him, to spend some time in His Word. I mean after all, if this was for Biology 101 we would. We spend numerous amounts of hours preparing for the final at the end of the exam, why are we not spending even more time preparing for the final at the end of our life; for Judgement Day. James 2:12 tells us "So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty" (NKJV). I do not want anyone to read that and be scared. Rather, to read that and realize that how we act out our religion is important, and does not go unnoticed. If I would spend hours preparing for a career in business, but give God the "spare time" I have after I watch a movie, what does that say about where my heart is? Is my heart, soul, and mind all for God?

For me, it boils down to this: We are commanded to love God with all we have. What is it that I love the most in life and do I love God with as much energy, passion, and time as I do the earthly thing I love? How do I love what I love? Do I give God that same love and time? How do you love?