Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength. Take to heart these words which I command you today. Keep repeating them to your children. Recite them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them on your arm as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.  Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Now, therefore, Israel, what does the LORD, your God, ask of you but to fear the LORD, your God, to follow in all his ways, to love and serve the LORD, your God, with your whole heart and with your whole being, to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD that I am commanding you today for your own well-being? Deuteronomy 10:12-13

There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”  Luke 10:25-28

One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Mark 12:28-30

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees they got together and, to put him to the test, one of them put a further question. ‘Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets too.’  Matthew 22:35-40

Loving God.

It sounds so simple.

If I were asked if I loved God, I’m sure my automatic response would be “yes”.

But do I really?

Or is what I have something else, something lesser than Love?

All of us know something about God. Even an atheist knows enough to make them not interested. Most of us begin our spiritual journey by learning about God. We hear friends and family talk about God. We go to church and hear bible readings and homilies and sermons about God. We read the bible, books and other religious materials and learn about God. We go to bible studies or book clubs, watch TV and videos and go to movies and learn once again, about God.

And at some point on our journey, we all are called to make the decision as to whether we’re content with this knowing about God or if there is something within us calling us to more—a desire to be closer and more intimate with God—the desire to know God and not just know about Him. Knowing God is not for the faint of heart. To know Him, we first have to let Him know us. And to do that, we have to first know ourselves. We have to take a long, hard, honest look at the real me in order to see myself as I really am and not as that person I have created and projected to the world throughout my lifetime. We have to look honestly and fiercely at ourselves, our sinfulness and especially our ego and pride. We have to acknowledge and accept our failings, our shortcomings and our fears. And we have to be willing to begin to give them up. We have to start sharing ourselves with God from our heart, the very deepest center of our soul. We must begin to relinquish our control and self-will and allow ourselves to trust Him with more and more of our lives. If we truly want to know God, we must sooner or later start working towards our total surrender to Him.

And as we begin this surrender, so too does God begin to let us know Him more intimately by touching our soul with His grace in accordance with how much we are willing to receive.

I’ve read that it’s all grace. That even to receive grace requires grace. But there is one thing that we can do on our own without grace, and that is to say no to God. So even while God is transforming us through His grace, He is limited by the control and self-will we have retained for ourselves. He will not force Himself on us, but only do what we permit Him to do.

To love God is something greater than to know Him.   St. Thomas Aquinas

Why does God love us?

He loves us for the same reason our parents love us. He loves us for the same reason we love our parents or our children or our spouse. He loves us not because of the person we have become or what we may have accomplished in our lives or even the things we have done on His behalf. He even loves us no matter what bad or evil things we may have done or what good things we have failed to do. The one and only reason God loves us is because we are His.

To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.  St. Augustine of Hippo

And so, for us to love God; just as we are His, He must become ours. And for that to happen we must finally surrender whatever remnants of control and self-will we are still clinging to that are stopping God from doing what He needs to do. We have to let go of the fears and anxieties that are holding us back. We must be willing to trust Him, to not just accept, but to embrace whatever God might have in store for us once we surrender, no matter what that might be—we must leave all things. We must embrace the uncertainty and the unknown and have confidence that whatever is to come, whenever it comes will somehow turn out for good.

We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God´s compassionate love for others.     St. Clare of Assisi

God loves us. And He wants us to love Him, not for His sake, but for ours. He wants to fill us to overflowing with His love and His life so that it can flow through us and back out into the world touching everyone we encounter. We are filled with some when we come to know about God. We are filled with even more when we come to know God, but we only overflow when we come to love God.

God is offering us a whole cake.

Let us not be satisfied with the crumbs.