With All My Heart, Soul, and Mind

 I will love the Lord my God with all my heart, my soul, my mind.

Heavenly Father, twice you give us such a simple command . . . to love you . . . with all our heart, soul, and mind. And yet we fail. Miserably. Often. Unintentionally. Carelessly. Maybe, sometimes on purpose.

We fail to love you with everything within our being.

Please, God, forgive us.

Forgive us for the way we so easily toss our love towards things and people and pursuits that won’t care for it like you do, won’t return it like you do, won’t nurture it like you do.

Forgive us for holding back from loving you with everything in our heart, with all our soul, with every bit of our mind. 

God, you knew this love command would be hard for us, but you didn’t let it slide by. You had Jesus bring it front and center, because it’s that important to you.

Lord, if your number one call on our lives is to love you, then make that our number one desire.

Please help us eradicate from our lives the distractions that steal our love. Help us demolish false gods and crush every bit of idolatry that sneaks in and steals away our heart, soul, and mind. Enable us to love you with a pure heart with every shred of our being. May that be our holy pursuit with each and every breath. In the Strong Name of Jesus.

Being brave is about being real.

It’s about pursuing what God is calling us to as a community, even if that means we have to get uncomfortably honest and ‘fess up our issues. I’ve said it for years, I think we all need t-shirts that say, “I’ve got issues. . . but God isn’t done with me yet.” So, how about if we start by sharing my issues as it relates to this command from God to love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind?

Loving God is not something that came naturally to me. As a child of abuse, I had a warped understanding of love. In searching for it, I became a people-pleasing, approval-addicted teen and twenty-something, who was pretty good at destroying relationships before they could destroy me. Ah, yes, I was emotionally and spiritually unhealthy, even after coming to know Christ as my Savior during my junior year in college.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized the depth of my wounding and dysfunction, and how it warped my understanding of God as a loving, Heavenly Father. Through a good bit of counseling, a whole lot of prayer, and a deep study of Scripture, the Lord opened my eyes to see God afresh. (Want to know more about my journey? You can find it here.)

I eventually realized that God’s commands were meant for our good — both the commands that call us away from hurtful behavior and those, like the ones found in Deuteronomy 6 and Matthew 22, that call us into heart-soul-and-mind healthy living.

When God urges us to love him with all our being, He’s inviting us to let go of everything toxic and unsatisfying.

While I knew that people wouldn’t ever satisfy my soul, I’d yet to discover how to receive God’s love and return it in full measure. He had a part of my heart, where my faith dwelled, but not the part still searching for approval. I was caught in the stronghold of idolatry throughout my thirties, making idols of my accomplishments and titles and ministry and projects. By by the grace of God, He opened my eyes to see my worth would never be found in anything but Him and His love was not dependent on all my “doings.”

God could love me no more or no less than He already did.

Once I embraced that truth, this love for God began to fill my heart and soul and mind in a way that I never before experienced, as a new way of thinking took over in my mind . . .

You are so loved by God, so just love Him back.

Even so, I’m still learning how to love God. The habit of loving everything else more isn’t one that dies easily. But I’m motivated by the fact that when I love someone or something more than God, I’m not only forsaking the command He’s put before us to love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind, I’m also walking in disobedience, even if it is unintentional. That’s a harsh reality, isn’t it? And that’s not how I want to live. What about you?

To continue this journey of living brave and inviting the next generation to join you in the journey, get a copy of Brave Together: A Conversation Starter for Cultivating Biblical Mentoring Relationships.

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