a rare treasure
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: …Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” Mk 12:28-31
After a dream I had about Jesus in August last year, my thinking began to change. I wanted more than anything to love the way He does, and to love Him more than anything else.
I thought a lot about how to live the first commandment, the Great Commandment. What does it mean to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, and mind? And how do I love others like myself?
I pored over it so much that David finally looked at me and said, “You know, there’s a chapter on that.” I stared at him open-mouthed. The Love Chapter! 1 Corinthians 13. That is exactly why I married him.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Cor 13:3-7
He gave us this pattern to follow in loving others. A pattern or prototype is something to copy, and Mark 12 also gives us a pattern—You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
As ourselves. I think I understand that. To love others like myself is to be longsuffering and kind, like I am to myself. I’m not rude to myself, I’m not happy when I catch myself messing up, and I believe in myself that I’ll do better next time. 1 Cor 13 shows us that pattern of loving others like ourselves.
But what about loving God? He doesn’t tell us to love Him like we love ourselves. Or like we love our neighbor. No, it has to be a much greater love than that. He doesn’t even say “Love Me like you love your most beloved person in the world”.
What He does say is “Love Me with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”
That’s not a pattern to copy. That is an original. That is a work of art that cannot be imitated, because it flows from the heart. And that, I think, is the secret of loving God. I must love from the deepest depths of who I am, to give God the love that only I can give, since there is only one of me in the entire world.
I have the sense that God is waiting to see the depth of love that I will give Him. It is almost like He is waiting to be surprised by my love, because it only exists here, in me, and there is no prototype of it in all the history of humanity. Maybe He is waiting and hoping that I might astonish Him with my love. Or will I just give Him the garden variety of love, with no extra thought or care than any other day?
Can I give Him a love that takes Him by surprise? That overwhelms Him, because of the depth of how deep I reach down and pull it from?
But how often have I scraped my love right off the top and handed it to Him proudly, like cream off the top of the milk? How deep do I reach when I worship Him, when I pray to Him?
Surely He is worthy of me diving down to the bottom of the ocean of my heart, searching to find the treasure chest that has never been unearthed, and swimming back up to the surface carrying my precious pearl of a rare, authentic, and unusual love for Jesus.
