My heart has been stirred to truly worship and love God and not just DO things for Him. I have many friends who are doing things for God but who aren’t necessarily loving Him. I see myself in this. What does it mean to “Love God with all of my heart?” Sometimes my husband will say, “Can you just be with me? Can you stop all of the work you are doing and just be with me?” I ponder this pull from him. I mean after all, the work that I’m doing is for him and our kiddos. I’m doing laundry, making dinner, cleaning the house, etc… Doesn’t this show him that I love him? But he craves something more, he craves me to just be with him.
I’m beginning to understand the Mary and Martha in the Bible. Jesus had arrived at their home with all of his disciples. Martha is busy scurrying around to make sure everything is just right and that everyone has plenty to eat. Mary, on the other hand, is sitting at Jesus feet and soaking up every word that He says. I have always been more of the Martha type but I’ve been hearing the Lord say something like, “Can you just be with me?” I think, “But Lord, don’t you see how much I love you by all that I do for you?” I think He would say…”Just come over here and be with me. Delight in spending time with Me.”
When I focus on what I can “do” for God it tends to become my kingdom. God can changed the whole world with His spoken word. The only thing that He hasn’t chosen to do is to make us love Him. He doesn’t need my work, my money, my ideas. He just needs me to love Him – truly love Him.
I know the Scriptures talk about giving your all for God and I believe that if I truly love God with all of my heart that I will naturally love those He created who are around me. I don’t have to create a “ministry” or “program” to do this.
Gary Chapman writes a book called The 5 Love Languages which details the different ways you can express your love to someone based upon their love language. My prayer is that the Lord will teach me His love language, that He would show me how He longs to be loved.