I initiated a conversation earlier this week by asking the following question: of all the avenues of how one can love God, which is your strongest avenue, and which is your weakest?
From Mark 12:30, NKJV:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
According to the text, there are four avenues of loving God: heart, soul, mind, and strength. The corresponding verses in the Gospel of Matthew (22:37) and the Gospel of Luke (10:27) corroborate this. With further reflection, I might be able to articulate each avenue and what loving God in that way looks like. For now, I will share that the way I'm able to practice loving God the best is experiential, which means heart and soul. I do talk to God quite a bit. (Shutting up so I can listen to Him tell me things is another story.) I also can connect with Him through worship music, and through being outside when it's nice. Seeing God in creation -- the spring buds on the trees, the birds in the air, beautiful forest scenes, fall colors, etc -- is an easy way to do just that.
Where I am weakest in loving Him is through my mind. I mentioned in a previous post that I dislike reading. My suspicion is that this will always be a challenge. Ironically, when I do sit and read the Bible, I usually get something out of it. That much is clear to me. I do see (and "hear") God speaking when I read His word. The point though about reading is that it benefits one's mind. When one reads, one's mind grows. One learns new things or rediscovers things one once knew. As much as God wants our hearts and souls for Himself, He also likes to meet us intellectually. (He also sometimes likes to challenge us intellectually!) Maybe someday in a future post I'll expound on my history with intellection and the twists and turns, but for now I'll simply say that I broke off from this particular avenue in my life as a young adult. I discovered that so many people intellectualize their way through life to the point that it's all they do when it comes to processing or making sense of events that happen, and that I was one of them. I eventually reached a point where I was determined to break off that chain. That said, I'm beginning to also learn that living a life with zero intellection is also not a good thing. (Drat!!)
In the same aforementioned conversation, I mentioned that blogging (as I am doing right now this very minute) is helping me learn to love God with my mind, as well as re-learning how to intellectualize in a healthy manner. In particular, these Lenten devotionals this year I think are helping me in this more than any other previous year that I did the such. I am sad that we are already more than halfway through Lent, but I am also thinking about how I want to shift the focus on this blog topically once we pass Resurrection Sunday (April 21st this year).
Today I will close by repeating the same question with which I opened this post: of all the avenues of how one can love God (heart, soul, mind, strength), which is your strongest avenue, and which is your weakest?
I certainly can relate in more ways than one. The challenge is to be open to grow in my weak spots.
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