I always start at the back of the book. Give me a book to read and I turn to the last few pages before I read anything else. I seem to have done the same thing with the words of Christ. As I looked at the verses in Matthew about ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind….. And love your neighbor as you love yourself”, I realized I had started at the end, with attempting to love others with the love of God. I am not good at that. I couldn’t seem to love anyone well, and I didn’t even think it was okay to love myself. Truth be told, I did not even feel love for God. I knew this about myself but being a creature of habit, a long time back-page girl, I asked God to help me love others. I prayed “God, help me love like YOU love”. I don’t hear his voice all the time but I heard him that day. He answered immediately with a STRONG emphasis on the pronoun ‘I’. He said “Well, ‘I-I-I’ forgive EVERYbody”. Obviously, I still had some forgiving to do before I could love as God loves.
So I flipped back quite a few more chapters, completely skipping over the part about loving myself. I asked him to help me love Him, because although my head loved God, my heart did not. My heart was closed off, cluttered, full of expectations and fears and busyness that I only hoped would bring me joy. I listened to Larry Green’s video (on the Cloudwalk.org site) on the chapter of Key Relationships and heard him talk about how, unless we love God most, we love others much less than we otherwise could. I knew it was true – away from God I tend to be pretty cranky. So thinking more about how to love God, I remembered the verse about loving him because he first loved us.
I picked up my Bible to look for the verse and out of the back, a letter slipped to the floor. It was a letter I had not seen in years. It had been written just before the first lavish retreat. I was doing a journaling exercise in an attempt to write a letter to someone I had not yet met. It was the kind of prayer exercise where you give God your pen and keep writing until your head finally gets out of the way and his voice can finally appear. The letter was so beautiful I kept a copy, knowing that it was meant for more than just the one woman I had in mind. The letter flowed as follows :
My dearest daughter –
You are so precious to me. Your life, your very name, is precious to me. I have known you since before you were born. I created you with majesty, and with joy in your heart.
I know every wound. I have been with you every moment. Though you did not always know it, I was there. And I will remain with you.
It is my deep desire that my love for you will fill your thoughts, soothe your soul, and protect your heart from lies meant to hurt you.
Come to me. I AM Truth. I separate lies from the Truth; simply come. You will know me as I am and you will know my love for you. Rest in that love and know, without doubt, how very wonderful you are to me.
— Abba —
Beautiful words, yet I still hesitated. How could I not trust him? My only thought was that I do not trust him because I do not know him as he is – as Jesus knew him. I only know how I expect him to be. I understood that ‘God is Love’ but did not know God AS Love. How could I know his Love if I did not know God?
There is a passage in 1 Corinthians 13 that describes Love. I wondered if it described God as well. When I read it that way, I believe I came to know him better, and trusted him just a little bit more.
When you linger in the verses for the first time, just enjoy the passage.
God is patient.
God is kind.
God does not envy. He does not boast. He is not proud.
God is not rude. He is not self seeking.
God is not easily angered. He keeps no record of wrongs.
God does not delight in evil but rejoices in Truth.
God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
God never fails.
The second time you linger over it, look for the words or images that draw your attention.
The third time, watch or listen for His invitation, or his encouragement. Respond to him if you like – that’s what he is hoping for.
With a foundation of knowing the gentle nature and grace of God, learning to trust his love will surely follow. Most likely, feeling love for him will be part of that new understanding. From that starting point, I believe loving others and yes, even loving self, will naturally flow. Perhaps the verse from Matthew can be interpreted as more of a cause and effect comment on how love grows in a human heart, better read not as two separate sentences, but as one : (If you) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind (then you) love your neighbor as you love yourself. The order of events makes all the difference.
Be blessed in your lingering with the Lord.