Those precious words from the mouth of Jesus keep popping up. I've seen them at least 7 times in the last few weeks. Ironically 7 is one of God's favorite numbers. How I fall so short of this simple and greatest command. I constantly love the Lord with a divided heart. I long for my dreams and goals more than his. I don't rest in His holiness. I don't listen to the word, I simply read it. I want to be embraced and enfolded in the love of God. I cannot love him in my own strength. I need his love to fill me up so I can pour it back out.
I'm learning that until I understand this, nothing else in my life is going to satisfy. I have to learn this lesson, I feel, every day. Satisfaction in the Lord should be the easiest thing ever. Yet we, I, make it harder than anything else. I cling to things I do not want or that aren't good and forsake my first love. I cling to things that are meant to be extra good on top of the Good that Jesus is, yet I try to make them the greatest good. Oh how I am broken. I think that the order Jesus says those four things in is super important. You have to first love the Lord with all your heart. The heart is deceptive above all things. I need that to be completely surrendered to God before anything else. Only he can fill it, mold it, change it, and complete it. After the heart, is the soul. This makes sense to me the more I think about it. I feel as if the heart is the home of the soul. When you fall in love with someone, you give them your heart. Once they have your heart, what do you call them? Soul mate. God has to have my heart and become my soul mate. He saves our soul through salvation, thus he must win our hearts first. So heart. Soul. Mind. The mind is next. This one is difficult after the heart. The mind is easily swayed. The truth of God must be firmly planted in the mind of each one of us. I need to delve deeper and hold dearer the words of the Bible. Strength. This one is tough. In one sense this could mean the body. But it could also be strength of character, heart, mind, etc. This could be an encompassing way of saying all three (heart, soul, mind) again. Either way works I think. But to love God with my strength means to give my all and then some. Because in my weakness, He is made strong. If i love him with all my strength, all I have left is my weakness. He thus has my heart, soul, mind and now has room to move into my weakness and work through me. It is such a beautiful picture of surrender.
My prayer is that through these next few months as I begin my final year of school, God will continue to help me surrender more and more and love him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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