This interested me most because I am often frustrated that I send my love out into the world in all directions, and when it isn’t returned or is abused by the receiver I am often hurt or disillusioned. I consider people friends in a world where it turns out that everyone is out for themselves. I sacrifice for the betterment of others only to find out that when I’m in need there is no one offering to help lift me back up. I give of my heart freely and openly to anyone who seems to be interested in having a piece of it, only for them to disregard it – and me – in favor of something fleeting and self-important.
The preacher on the radio was quoting the scripture that we are not to love things of the world, but we are to dedicate our love to the Father. He said that the human is only capable of loving so much, and that if we give of our love to the things of the world, that leaves less room in our hearts for God. Up to that point, I was listening; but then he said a line that distracted me from his sermon.
He began to list the things of the world that he would like to give his love to, but, in order to give his love to the Father, he couldn’t. Among them were pets, sports teams… and people.
This is where I disagreed. Now, if I had continued to listen to the sermon at this point, he probably would have had the chance to elaborate and explain and I might have ended up agreeing with him again by the end of it; but usually when I stop listening, it isn’t out of stubbornness or close-mindedness – it is because my own train of thought has started rolling.
You see, to me, and to many, people of the world are a fraction of what God is, and if we don’t love those other people – those children of His – then we are turning our hearts away from Him. To love God, you can’t pick and choose which parts of God you want to love. You can’t just love your personal God – the one inside your soul and the one who you speak to in your prayers. You must love God in His entirety and see the ACTIVE God, all around you. God is not a being in lofty heights, whispering to you from above or standing beside you as you kneel and close your eyes.
God is everyone, and everything. He is the sky, the trees, the animals, the happy news, the crisis, and the eyes of others. Many people see something terrible and ask where God was, and attribute what they see as a lack of God’s presence to the sin of other human beings.
But what if God WAS there during that crisis? Perhaps it was not sin that brought the calamity, but the natural course of events on this big huge planet in a universe we cannot begin to fathom or figure out. What if as many good people were affected by that crisis as sinners? And what if, as He is known to be, God was there the whole time in the hearts of his people? What if God was there saving lives and saving souls? And when you look at it that way you have to be terrified of the thought, “What if He hadn’t been there?”
In order to love God, you must love some of these “things” of the world. You cannot simply set your focus on a God of a throne and a mansion in Heaven and expect to get there. You must look around you, and give of your heart to the people and the circumstances that are happening. If God is in them, you are loving Him, and if God isn’t in them, then you can bring Him into those situations and through your service, prove your love.
Maybe that is what the preacher on the radio was getting around to saying? Who knows? It doesn’t matter how that sermon ended, because I got what I needed and what I was intended to get out of it. I understand myself, my God, and the opinions of others a bit better now, and I’m standing on my little soapbox to pass it along.
"Teddy Bear" was taken by Petr Kratochvil.
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