Love God. How?

Loving God.

Without total certainty due to ignorance on my part, but with a fair guess, I would think most people with a sense of spirituality would aim to achieve this at some level - regardless of who or what they see God as being. Although we will not all realize agreement on that subject, today’s concept disregards our differences and can only truly unite, if put into practice.

I have grown up with the idea that worship of God is the ultimate act of love towards Him. Worship was defined as singing songs of praise to Him, thanking Him for what we have, praying words of adoration to Him.

I have since come to disagree with this idea.

I struggle to view God as the supreme essence of megalomania.

I do not deny the benefit of worship as I’ve been taught, to be a helpful reminder of how we view God or of how we endeavour to be, but I now embrace doubt that those actions profit Him.

This leads me straight into the quest for the answer of how truly to love God.

I can only come to one conclusion: The act of loving others is the crucial, essential and implicitly singular method of actually loving Him.

 

I think God, as we do, recognizes the old adage that “talk is cheap”. I don’t think He wants our words aimed back at Himself, but rather His love directed straight at others through what we do. Exponential measures of changed lives can be achieved through pure love shared by those who truly love Him.

We could:

Sing “I love you Lord”

Or

 We could freely babysit for an overworked single mother and rock her babies to sleep with tenderness.

We could:

Say “I am thankful for many blessings”

Or

We could give our warmest leather gloves right off our hands as we come to a street corner with a man sitting freezing in the cold, begging for change.

We could:

Lift our hands as we sing “Your love is amazing”

Or

We could embrace a homosexual and love them just as they are, as we would any cherished heterosexual daughter.

We could:

Bow our heads as we sit in the pews and pray for our sick neighbour

Or

We could hold their hand, cry with them and pray for peace as they lose the battle to cancer.

We could:

Pray for humility

Or

We could volunteer to clean the overused toilets at a teen drop-in centre.

We could:

Pray for forgiveness

Or

In an attitude of repentance, humbly ask for the help we need to take steps to change our negativity.

I have a confession to make.

I have recently wept over my own failures in some of these very areas.

Inadequacy chokes as I type who I desire to be, but know I can never totally become. That is – a complete lover of God.

Love of self stands in the pathway.

I must hope in the redemption of error. (That is, in spite of my faults good can still result, often on the part of others.)

At the same time I must attempt to express my love towards God by rather aiming it towards others.

That is my heart today.
 

Amen.