Love Your God: Conclusive Thoughts

Over the last week or so, I have been slowly taking a look at some of the deeper meaning behind what is called the "greatest command" in Mark 12. In the first installation, I talked about loving God with our hearts and making sure that we knew what the divine will and affections are so that we can bring ours in line with it. In the next post, I talked about loving God with our soul and gave some practical resources to start to get in touch with your non-physical body so as to be able to devote it to God. In the third piece, I talked about loving God with our minds and wrote on what the mind does and how to exercise it for God's Kingdom cause. In the last post, I discussed loving God with our strength and how this encompasses our physical bodies, our areas of influence in the world and our practical capabilities. In this conclusive post, I would like to draw these four together to demonstrate that what Jesus is really getting at -- and what the law was meant to portray -- is that we belong to God and he is ours in graceful union.

To me, these four specific areas seem to fall into a set of two couplets that encompass all of the relational facets of the human.

Couplet One
I see mind and heart making up the first couplet; here we find that Jesus is saying to love God with our intellectual and reasoning faculties, but to also love God with our feeling and wanting faculties. This seems pretty straight forward, but let's look at why this important. If a person were to compartmentalize their relationship with God (as most people are prone to do from time to time), there is a privation of total experience. For the intellectual person, we lose out on that deep-seated feeling of love; for me, this happens while working on my master's degree. I'll get so wrapped up in evaluating thing in a sterile, laboratory-type mental state that I forget that theology is inherently organic; it is natural, mystical and real as it is simply our thoughts and beliefs about God. It would be absurd to view my relationship with my wife as purely analytical and legal -- it would just be unhealthy -- so why should my relationship with my Creator be any less messy and intimate? it shouldn't. However, the pendulum can swing the opposite direction.

It is true that at times, people can compartmentalize in the other direction: with the heart. We get wrapped up in what it feels like to try to commune with the divine but in placing all of our focus here, we necessarily cut off the ways that we try and meet God via our minds. As one who has been in music ministry for more than half of my life, I can identify with this as well. It's easy to find "that song" or "that passage of Scripture" that just speaks to your heart and dwell so long on it that we lose out of the richness of fully engaging the couplet of heart and mind. Where this becomes detrimental to one's relationship with God is when our theology suffers because of our emotional longings. Sound theology, proper, demands careful thoughtfulness and passionate energy. Passion alone is like my two-year-old dancing and playing air guitar to the end music of his Scooby Doo movie; it's cute and beautiful in its own way, but it lacks grace, coordination and accuracy (he seems to switch from left handed to right handed guitar a lot). The better way -- the more holistic way -- is to love God with the entirety of this first couplet: heart and mind -- passion and intelligence.

Couplet Two
The second couplet, then, is clearly the two remaining ways of loving God: the soul and strength. Here we also see opposing facets of human relational capacities. Simply put, we are to love God with all of our physical parts as well as all of our non-physical parts. Just like the first couplet, we tend to compartmentalize or over-emphasize one of the two. When that happens on the soul side, we end up with people who are very "spiritual" without actually doing much. This can look like a number of things, but it is most apparent in one who is willing to say they're Christian, maybe post a lot of Christian memes on Facebook, maybe listen to "Christian music" (whatever that is) or maybe simply study and believe all the right things about God, but when it comes down to it, this person is not communing with the marginalized in their community; they aren't reaching out to the hurt and lost or (and this one is going to hurt, so please believe my intentions are good) perhaps this person is simply destroying their body with how they live their life. I don't mean substance abuse, but the just-as-deadly killers of the western diet and lack of exercise; there are far too many in ministry who don't talk about health and fitness because it indicts themselves and their lack of effort. Remember that it is a measure of love to care for our bodies and it is a measure of love to do good works for the Kingdom. Let us not be simply speakers, but also doers.

The other extreme, however, is the person who is willing to volunteer, is faithful to be in the pew on Sunday, bakes the casserole and writes the check, but does little to deepen their experience of the divine. This person may see the value in doing, but rarely feels that intimate connection to the divine except in emotional starts and bursts. There is no consistent awareness of the presence of God and there is little exploration away from their little island of theological awareness and experience. Just as it would be awful in my marriage to be content to take care the kids, do the chores, pay the bills and never connect with my wife on a deeper level than the transactional, never learn more about her and only grow closer in starts and bursts, so to is it with our relationship with God. Truly, humans are designed to need both sides of this couplet in order to have the fullest relationship with God.

Last Things
I think that if we really think about it these two couplets, when used to their fullest potential, not only yield the greatest expression of love to God, but also are a blue print of sorts to the best way to yield a vibrant relationship with God. Spanning the width of our minds and hearts while simultaneously reaching ever deeper into the fathoms of our soul and strength; this is the greatest command: that you should love God with absolutely every part of who you are. This is our design given by the divine.

peace,
C.M.

p.s. If you liked this series, let me know! Also, share it with someone you care about :)

Love Your God: with Your Strength

Part 4 of what (I just now decided) will be a 5 part series. Thus far, in examining the greatest commandment, we have evaluated loving God with your heart, soul and mind. Here we begin the fourth way and next after this, I'll draw some broader conclusions and pull these ideas all together into a unified message. Let's begin.

Now, at a brush, "love God with your strength" kind of seems like an odd phrase. We usually associate love with feelings and so we don't typically think about using our physical modes in non-physical ways; it's just absurd. I remember as a kid asking a youth group leader what this meant and he more or less said "love God real hard". While this is something of an exaggeration (that is, he did try at something but this is about all that came across), it does point out a blind spot in our understanding of this Mark 12 passage. So now we have to ask the seemingly silly question:

What is my strength?

The easy, undeveloped answer is simply that the Greek word used for strength in this passage is transliterated as ischus (is-khoos') which means ability, force and strength. On first appearance, this definition doesn't seem to bring much clarity, but when you start looking closer at each of these areas, you will find that to love God with our ischus means a lot more than you'd have thought.

• To love God with your ability means to submit in loving humility and servitude to God with all that you are able to accomplish. Entrepreneurship, speech, networking, raising kids, cleaning house, making dinner, calling friends, writing a letter (yes, people still do that); the list goes on and on. This inherently puts submission and prizing the will of God in the active category, not just the emotional. Love is not a feeling, but a verb -- a movement. So, in all of your activities -- every single one -- demonstrate the sacrificial love of Christ (without getting into it here, I'd just like to add that this is harder than it seems on first examination).

• Loving God with our force means to love God with our power of influence. Whether you are a CEO of an enormous company or a stay at home mom, you have a measure of influence (I would add that the latter has the greater amount) and it is to be used to the glory of God by the furthering of his Kingdom. This places love of God as the central responsibility for the believer; not correct theology, not perfect reputation in the eyes of others, but divine love. So, take time to take stock of your force and think critically of where you might utilize your power for Jesus' cause.

• Loving God with your strength (more colloquially here) means submitting your physical body to him in its care and purpose. This is not the same teaching as "don't tattoo yourself because your body is the temple of God" or "don't smoke or drink because you dishonor your God-given body". Instead, this is the stronger (and better exegetic) argument and command that not only what comes out of the body is either dirty or clean and so make sure that is fit for a Kingdom-person (Matt. 15:11) but also how you care for and know your body indicates your love for God. For clarity, let's put this argument in a simpler form: which is more convincing and right? to say to someone "take care of your body as best you can because God lives there and it dishonors him not to" or "take care of your body as best you can because it demonstrates love to God". The latter is consistent with our definition of love while the former functions on warped premises (i.e. Does God need a body to live in? no; is his honor of primary concern? no, Jesus says that love is of primary concern). So, get to know your body, feed it good things, move it how it should be moved and do no evil with it.

So how is all of this accomplished?

While I gave points of direction at the end of each of the above bullets, the simplest answer is this: intentionality. Just as I covered in the "love God with your soul" piece, it is not by any accident that we love God with our physical applications. You must block out time in your day to sit down and write out which areas of your life you have "force"; you must carve out of, what seems to be a stone-hard schedule, time exercise and eat right; you must purposefully behave in a way that reflects love, especially when people don't deserve it. Loving God with all of your ischus is nearly as difficult as loving him with all of your psuche. Nevertheless, this (along with the other installations in this series) is the command of God.

Thank you for reading this and the other posts; join me next time as I (attempt to) tie these four modes of loving God into a single theory of loving God.

peace,
C.M.

Love Your God: with Your Mind

Part 3 is here! I encourage you to go back and read parts 1 & 2 about loving God with your heart and soul. I have been systematically walking through the passage in Mark in which Jesus says that "the most important commandment is...you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength (Mark 12:29-30, NLT)." So we find ourselves ready to evaluate how to love God with your mind; let's begin.

The first thing we ought to do is define terms:

What is the mind?

The mind is a person's intellect, capacities to reason and memory. As I said in the previous post, I believe that the mind is a facet of the soul and thus not necessarily located in the brain (I won't get into it, but I will say that all that science can say definitively is that if there is a connection between the soul and the body, it is likely in the brain/nervous system). In this post I would like to expand on this idea and add that I think the mind is the guide to the soul; that is, it is the part that directs the soul where it would go and what it would evolve into. This is why we're told through Scripture that it is by the reforming of our mind that we are transformed into Christ's likeness. If you renew your mind -- the conductor of your "soul train" -- you necessarily impact the rest of the person.

So how do we love God with this mind?

I think, while there are many specific ways which we can love God with our mind, there are also general categories. My purpose here is to draw out these broad categories.

First, our mind can be made to love God by expanding it. Learning is one of the most primary ways that we honor God. Any time creation is as it is intended to be, God is honored; by learning, the mind is most fundamentally acting as it should according to it's purpose. In this way, we utilize our mind in humble submission (and thus love) to God's will and intention for that piece of our being. Again, there are specific ways that we can do this and most people learn by different means. So, whether you are a visual, auditory, a reading or a doing learner, you can love God by pushing the margins of your knowledge to new limits. God want's you to; he made you to; he delights in the wise and learned; he blesses seekers of truth.

A second general way that we can love God with our mind is to "meditate on the things of God". We covered this in subtlety in the last post. In lay-terms, think of things that are of God; things that are good, true, honorable, etc. We also do this by thinking about the teachings of Christ, the traditions of the church and things revealed to us by the Spirit. For example, once in a time of transition in my life, I felt the Spirit clearly say to me "eyes forward, hands on the plow". A reference from Scripture recalled and re-worded for my benefit, this message carried me. I spent time thinking about it; if I wanted to be fit for the work of the Kingdom, I needed to be forward looking and have my hands firmly gripping the tasks at hand. It is often true that you become like that which you think about.

A third way that we can love God with our mind is to do what it naturally does: drive the soul. Specifically, we ought to use our powers of intellect and reasoning to form a worldview that reflects the worldview of Christ. This means that we need to take his sermon on the mount seriously; it means that we need to view the world in terms of spiritual warfare; it means that, despite modernity, we ought to realize that the world as we  know it and the governments we submit to are not good enough. In light of this Christ-like worldview, we ought to be driven to action. Our mind drives not only the soul but also the body in this way.

There are probably things that lay outside of these categories, but I'm fairly sure that most uses of the mind and most ways of loving God with it fall into one of these three broad and often inter-related categories.

Things to keep in mind:

While there are many things to note when discussing loving God with our mind, I think that one of the most important is that we ought not fear reason and intellect. There is a subculture within Christianity that would say that unquestioning obedience is what God seeks and that philosophy, doubt and reasoning ought to be held as suspect. This, however, is not truth; Jesus consistently pushes his followers and challengers to think well. I am of the belief that Jesus was the greatest philosopher in the most academic sense of the word. Here is a fantastic book that builds a solid case for the life of the mind in a Christian's walk, here is a book that beautifully demonstrates that Jesus was indeed a philosopher and here is a book that shows you that doubt is not the opposite of faith.

I strongly encourage you to look up those books and even read them. Also, think about what has been said here; learn, think about the things of God and form your worldview to match Jesus'. Join me next time to talk about loving God with our strength. Also, please feel free to add your own ideas in the comments section: how else can you love God with your mind? Let us reason together!

peace,
C.M.

Love Your God: with Your Soul

Continuing into part 2 of this series on loving God, we approach the sometimes confusing part of the passage in which we are to love God with our soul. If you missed part 1, I encourage you to read it first.

A good preliminary issue to tackle is the elephant in the room: what is the soul? This is often the confusing part for those who would read Mark 12 and seek to obey. The Greek word used here that is interpreted as "soul" is transliterated as psuche (pronounced psoo-khay) which can also mean one's breath of life, vital force and a person's essence which is different from the body and preserved beyond death. Soul is simply a concise term to capture that idea.

I believe in a particular "theory of the soul" but there are many; for simplicity and efficiency sake, I'll be speaking from my own belief and not educating the reader on all the many theories. I do encourage you to go look some up, though, there are many. As I understand it, the soul is the biggest category one can use for a person's non-physical attributes. Within this broader category, we have subcategories which include the spirit, the mind, the heart, the memory, etc. In order to love God we must devote each of these categories in humble submission to the divine.

If I'm to love God with my soul, it means that I am to love him with all of the non-physical parts of me.

Well that seems pretty straight forward, but how do we actually DO that? Great question, thanks for asking!

In order to conform all of the metaphysical parts of my person to the submissive, loving servitude of Christ's example, I must begin by knowing myself a bit. If I don't know what my soul is like, I can't very well interact with it or bend it to my will (which, paradoxically, is located in the soul). In the west, we have far too often lost the art of meditation, introspection, self-evaluation beyond an online personality survey (which Disney Villain are you?) and so we end up walking around the earth like ghosts; we don't know our physical bodies much (unless you are in a health profession) and we don't know our non-physical bodies much (unless you are an exception to the norm, which is just as plausible as being a health professional; that is, it happens). So, first, get to know you, then follow Christ's example and teachings.

How do I get to know my soul?

I'm about to lose some people here...
The most effective way that I have found to encounter my metaphysical self is to still my physical self. This in and of itself is a feat to be mastered (and I have yet to master it), but it is well worth it for the pay off is enough quiet to accomplish an inner look at oneself. Contrary to popular belief, mediation is not historically a foreign practice to Christianity. In fact the ascetic and monastic traditions within Christianity are rich in theology and experience of the divine. It is incredibly worth a look at the Desert Mothers and Fathers as well as more popular mystics like St. Gregory Palamas or Bonaventure. So here is a quick how-to on Christian meditation. Be forewarned, this isn't nearly the only way and you likely won't get it perfect the first time (unless you're just a soul-ninja) as calming one's mind and body at the same time is a skill to be practiced.

• First, find a time to practice; I'm a morning person, so being up at 6 am with nothing to do for an hour and a half is great for me. My kids and wife (and even dog) are still sleeping and I have no obligations other than what I place on myself. You may be a night person or only have time on your lunch break. Like exercising your physical body, you must block out time intentionally to "take your soul out for a jog". Thankfully, you shouldn't need more than half an hour at most; even still, I would only attempt about 5-10 minutes in the beginning as that will be plenty difficult. Set a timer somewhere if you need to, but don't try for too long; acclimate. 
• Next, find a place that is appropriate to practice your meditation; I've found that too comfortable a spot isn't good because I just fall asleep and too uncomfortable a place is also distracting, though this may be ok as you become more proficient at mediation and are able to block out discomfort. You'll want to be seated, not laying, in a comfortable position in which you won't need to fidget too much.
•  Then pray; this is the easiest way to get out all the things that would likely have come up to distract you later anyway, so just pray that God grants you peace and help to discover who you are in him and how to grow in your soul. This will be the start of your practice.
• After that, I've found that what is called the "Centering Prayer" is most effective to begin to calm my mind. The Centering Prayer works like this: you pick a word (i.e. grace, peace, Jesus, love, hope, sacrifice, Father, Trinity, etc.) that will help you "center" your thoughts and focus. As you close your eyes and begin to think of nothing but that word, you are preparing to hear from God. This is not an emptying of your mind, but a focusing on the things of God. Here you will learn what occupies your mind (which is a part of your soul) as these are the things which will come to distract. Don't be discouraged or angry when other things come to mind; simply acknowledge them briefly and then use that word as a tether back to your center.
• Then, listen; look inside yourself and ask who you are. Ask God who you are meant to be. Don't think too hard, just be. Again, this isn't an erasing of yourself; just as a static body can be working very hard, so too can a still soul be active.
• When time is over or you feel you've heard/learned something new, pray again in gratitude for all that God gives.
• Finally, "wake up" the body again. Stretch, move, walk around; it is rare that the body is so still and the soul so active, and what goes on in your metaphysical person affects your physical deeply so be courteous to yourself.

Ok, that was a quick (very quick) instructional and it is not nearly all encompassing by any means; it is simply what has worked for me. Other ways of learning about yourself (if this suits you) is to write a "spiritual autobiography". For this, you only need to make a timeline with your birth at one end and today at the other, then go through and mark major life events and then go back one more time and try to discover what your spiritual life was like during the time between events (remember your spirit is the part of your soul which communes with God). One last way to learn about your soul is to read; read, read, read and see what you like, what interests you and what you believe and what you don't. Engaging your mind is part of this effort.

All in all, you must always remember that in each of these efforts to discover your metaphysical person, it is all for the purpose of loving God who doesn't want us to be strangers to ourselves. Learn who you are in the deepest parts of you; introspect and question. Only then can you begin to think, feel, know, believe, experience and love God with your soul.

Next time I will be writing on loving God with our minds; I hope you join me again.

peace,
C.M.