Love God

Matthew 22:37 – And Jesus said to them, “You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind.”

The Greek word, psyche, (soul, life, spirit) is used for the Hebrew word, nefesh, a person’s entire being, including their breath and their life. I used ‘being’ because it gets at what Jesus is saying better than the traditional translation of ‘soul.’ Loving God with our entire being includes our whole body, our actions, our self-care. God wants our everything. She wants us to be focused on her all day, every day. Our thoughts, feelings, and actions arise from our love for God.

Another thing about the Greek; instead of ‘with’ all your heart, mind, and soul it uses ‘in.’ God is to be in our hearts (emotions), thoughts, and actions. This is more a goal than anything we can achieve. It takes work to rid ourselves of our jealousies, resentments, greed, anger, and bigotry. It takes intentionality in every action, discerning whether they are grounded in love. It means questioning what we’ve been taught. Are Black people really that scary? Why do we feel uncomfortable in the presence of illness or disability? Why do we think we’re entitled to more than our share? Is there a reason we think God hates people whose sexuality is different from ours? What about other cultures? Can we accept others in their culture instead of insisting they assimilate to ours? All that thinking is exhausting; it takes a lot of energy. The temptation to sleepwalk through life is strong. It would be so much easier.

However, that is what loving God requires. I cannot maintain such an attitude for any length of time, especially if I’m hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or sick. Who am I to judge another person’s inability to do so? It gets tricky when harm has been done to me or another person. How is it possible to forgive as Jesus calls us to do, while holding the miscreant accountable for their actions? This is why loving is so hard. An interesting example here is Eric Schneiderman. I was a fan of his because he was stepping up for women and against 45. It is tempting to downplay his actions for this reason. Yet, he didn’t deny the accusations, only claimed it was consensual. If we believe women when people like Roy Moore or Matt Lauer are accused, then we have to believe women when men who seemed to us like good people are accused. Justice for these women is more important than our need to be right or any one person’s career. Loving God includes siding with the oppressed and abused, adding our voices to their calls for justice.

Recognizing that people need to be held accountable and working for that justice takes effort. It is much easier to sit back and criticize the actions of those demanding accountability. This is the dynamic between white nationalists and the Black Lives Matter movement. Black Lives Matter is demanding accountability for police officers who shoot unarmed Black people. White nationalists are criticizing them for their tactics. It is easier to make excuses to make ourselves comfortable, than to listen to another’s pain, rage, indignation, and sorrow that we caused. Yet, that is what loving God is; supporting those who have been oppressed, unjustly treated, repressed, abused, and rejected by our society.

What situation is calling you to self-reflection? What would a loving response look like? What is keeping you from such a loving response?