You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might – Deuteronomy 6:5
Have you ever had seasons where you felt like you were loving God with your heart but not your mind? Or you were loving God with your thoughts, but your heart was a little removed from it? If you have, you are not alone. Life has a way of knocking us down sometimes and challenging us in different ways, including in our faith. I remember a friend asking me whether I was really loving God with all my heart and soul and might? Was I really loving God with everything in me, or was I only loving Him with part of me? This was a hard question because it meant stopping and asking myself if I was giving God everything.
Am I loving God with all my heart and soul and might?
Reflecting on this question, I discovered that I wasn’t loving God with everything. I loved God, but I didn’t always love Him with my whole heart and soul and might. My heart and soul and mind weren’t entirely given to God. Which got me thinking, how do I love God with my heart and soul and might? What does that look like? As I started to ponder and tease that question out, I started to find my answer in the bible, mainly through the life of David.
David was the only person in the bible that God referred to as a man after His heart. With all his flaws, David was still considered a man after God’s heart, and we understand why in Acts 13:22, And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ David was after God’s heart and he did all that God willed him to do.
Loving with all our heart, soul and might.
Loving God with everything we have isn’t easy because doing God will isn’t always easy. For me, I have my dreams and plans and in an ideal world, I would like God to put His stamp of approval on them and make them happen. But that isn’t how it works. God will at times ask us to do hard things. He will ask us to make some hard choices. In asking us to take up our cross and follow Him, He will ask us to abandon certain things so that His plans and purposes will be fulfilled. And that can be hard. Real hard. I know this from experience. But it is also worthwhile because nothing is as beautiful or rewarding as being in God’s presence. His will may be hard and difficult, but He will equip us to walk in it.
Despite the mistakes that he made, David determined to follow God with all his heart and soul and mind. He determined that he would do whatever God wanted him to. And he ran to God. When our mind falters, we need to encourage our heart to keep going. When our souls are weary from the journey, we need to preach to ourselves and remind ourselves that He who started a good work in us will finish it (Philippians 1:6).
Pressing in and pressing on
Most importantly, we need to lean into Him and on Him for our strength to persist. We need to press into the Holy Spirit, knowing that only He can strengthen us and give us peace when everything is shaking, or we want to quit the race. When we don’t want to do what God is asking us because it is too hard or it feels like He is asking too much, we need to sit at His feet and remember that this life is a journey that doesn’t end here; life on earth as we know is not eternal and it is not the end of the story, eternity with Jesus is. And that is worth doing all we can to love God with all our heart and soul and might.
Thank you for sharing. I’ve been creating worship playlists and setting aside time to just try and focus, I say try because I often find my mind wandering.
Thanks for encouraging me. Blessings x
I hear you, Keona! Keeping my mind centred and focused is hard. This devotion was definitely one that I am preaching to myself.
Glad you were encouraged by it! X