How to Love with All Your Heart.

Exactly one year ago, I was walking through the woods at my childhood home with my boyfriend. It was a young spring day, the snow didn't know whether to melt or crunch beneath our feet. The sun was chilling behind a pale grey sky, dusting us once in a while with a snowflake or two. The birds were singing and the tall pines were swaying. And all the while, I was telling my guy that I trusted him. I trusted his leadership in our relationship, his timing (when he was going to pop the question) and his judgement.

You see, maybe it's being the eldest in my family, I like to have a bit of control? I like to know when things are going to happen and I want to be ready to handle them. I had come to believe I would not be proposed to until the summer, and I oddly had little peace about that. My mind was like 'that's good, that's smart', but my heart said, 'uh-uh'. I didn't know why I felt conflicted.

So, when he got down on one knee in the wet snow, I was totally caught unawares. The whole lead up to our engagement I was babbling on about how I trusted him, his leadership and decisions. I didn't realize at first the significance of what I was saying to his heart in that very moment.

Of course once I saw the ring I started laughing and crying, and then laughing agin, I thought, "Ok, God what do I say?" And in the longest second in history, I heard nothing. "Is that a yes?" my man asked, feeling the wet ground seeping into his jeans and my tears on his face. I whispered and then shouted "yes... YES!"

God has a beautiful way of revealing His faithfulness and how much He cares about the heart. Soon after getting engaged, I recalled that in that very same spot in the woods during the years I lived at home. There, I would sing at the top of my lungs to the trees and worship Jesus. I would pray and think about my future husband and dream of this very moment. My trust in God and my trust in my now husband allowed me to catch a glimpse of what it is to love well.

During the year I was dating and then engaged, I had my class of grade 4 students memorize Luke 10:27: "Jesus answered 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength'". We centred our learning around that verse (it was a Christian school). While the students were learning foundational truths, I was too - and I pondered in my relationship season, how to do I love the Lord with all my heart in this time of great personal change? How do I love the Lord with all my heart when my heart is so distracted?

The heart itself is defined in Luke 10:27 is the centre or seat of spiritual life, the fountain or seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes and endeavours. It characterizes will and virtue. It is the middle or central or inmost part of anything, even though inanimate. It is what stirs longing in every other part of being.

Celebrations like Valentine’s Day or birthdays or marriages that are speckled with symbols of hearts encourage the likening of the heart to love – love in the sense of emotional, sensual, platonic love. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, we need to celebrate the healthy actions of love and marriage more often then we do. Agape love, or selfless love, needs to be expressed and accepted more than it is. Sexual love needs to be talked about by Christians and honoured more than it is.

The action of love, the true sense of what it is, has been dolled up and smeared across to disguise the body of lust for centuries. Often we stumble into the ritual of love - going to church, giving to the poor, saying nice things, being a good person - and love becomes a religion. We worship the products of love. So, when asked to love the Lord with all our hearts, we make a mess of it because we base our love on what we do - not who we are.

Loving with all we are can feel overwhelming, and honestly, I feel like I do a better job at loving God from my 'doings'. But, just imagine - God loves me so much, He sent Jesus to die for me. Woah. God loves me because He created me. What. So, even before I could stand or eat solid food, God's love for me was all consuming - not for what I could do, but for who I am. I don't think we allow our materialistic, grade-driven, hardworking selves to go to that place of realization enough.

So, how on earth do I get to that place daily? I do I live loving the Lord with all my heart?

If I love the Lord with all my heart, my love for Him becomes the reason and the response of all my passions, my desires, my hopes and dreams. It is the real, honest engagement of my thoughts with His reality. I stop worrying about tomorrow and trust instead. I stop stressing about the past, the present, or the future, rather I believe that God knows the desires of my heart - He doesn't tease me with my desires.

Love is a choice. We were given free will from the start. God wants us to choose Him. He wants us to choose His love. So, what does choosing God's love look like? Stop watching pornography that perverts and betrays your heart - your heart was first created to be more hungry for the presence of God then the vision of sex. Stop focusing on tithing as a negative and give from a mindset of blessing – a heart-set of loving. Stop getting too wrapped up in Netflix or Instagram (etc.) and avoiding those 'hard' conversations with God about life and love. Stop and start. Like a heart. Beating from the inside out, wanting more than anything to be in love with Jesus.

It is not super complex, but it is not super simple. It is hard to stay focused on these things in a world full of competing stories of what loving with your all heart is really about. Experience will tell you it is worth the sweat, blood and tears of struggling up and down the mountains of life when you know that your heart is steadfast on loving Him. When I love the Lord with all my heart, I trust Him - His plans for me, His Word, His promises...

A few weeks after our engagement, I asked the Lord about why I never 'heard' anything from Him in the split second before I said yes to marriage. His answer was simple: I trust you, beloved. It's your choice and I Am with you wherever you go. Jesus loves us. Jesus' love for us won't diminish or fade. Loving the Lord with all your heart in heavily invested in trusting and choosing. It is a journey. It will always be.

How to Love with All Your Heart... Practically

1. Trust. Proverbs 3:5 (TPT) says "Trust in the Lord completely, and do not rely on your own opinions. With all your heart, rely on Him to guide you, and He will lead you in every decision you make." Simply daily say, God I trust You. I trust that Your plans are good for me. I give you my trust today.

2. Choose. Galatians 5:13 (NLT) "For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love." Make a time of day your date time with God. There are so many great devotionals out there and Bible studies, but make time to spend time with God - worship, go for a walk, read - just you and Him.

3. Talk. Numbers 12:8 (NIV) "I speak to him face to face, clearly, and not in riddles." God loves the sound of your voice. Have a conversation with Him... in your car, in bed, getting ready for the day... Be honest. Raw. Open. Don't be afraid of letting Him in. Then, let Him talk to you. Just be quiet. Stop striving with your thoughts or with your tongue. Don't be afraid of what He will say to you.

#heart #luke1027 #christian #christianity #faith #love