Obsession

'Of all the commandments, which is the most important?''The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."’

--Mark 12:28(b)-30 (NIV84) 

On Saturday, Avi (my ten-year-old son) suddenly remarked "I'm so excited for tomorrow!"  At first I genuinely had no idea what he could be excited about, and then I remembered that the next day was Mother's Day.  I wondered whether he could truly be anticipating Mother's Day, so I asked him what he was excited about, half-expecting him to say there was going to be an Adventure Time marathon on Cartoon Network. Exasperated, he reminded me: "Tomorrow's Mother's Day!"  


I don't know how it is that my ten-year-old boy still loves to do nice things for me.  He genuinely looks forward to Mother's Day every year and always concerns himself with whether I'm spending the day relaxing and enjoying myself.  I always look forward to extra hugs and affection, not out of obligation, but out of real love. Yesterday afternoon I started cleaning a few leftovers out of the refrigerator and he came over and told me I needed to stop it. "You always work, work, work.  You should just sit down and relax today." I relented, and he smiled and sat down with me.


Do we delight in loving God this way?  Or is it a grudging show of honor, out of obligation?  And before you answer that, you owe it to yourself to really think and answer honestly.  The commandment that Jesus highlights as most important (originally set out in Deuteronomy 6:4) sets an all-consuming standard. To love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength?  I would have nothing left. I would be completely spent, exhausted from all that love.

"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?"

--Psalm 42:1-2 

Do we wait impatiently for prayer times, anxious to steal away and spend time with the most consuming love of our lives?  Are we desperate for God?  
God doesn't want our stingy affection. He doesn't want us to serve Him out of guilt, out of self-seeking motives, or out of fear. He doesn't want our leftover time, money, or love. "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God."  (Deuteronomy 4:24 NIV).  He wants the first of it, the next part, and all the rest too. Love for Him should and will progressively consume us, and we will only be satisfied by spending more and more time with Him and by doing things that delight Him. We do these things not to earn His favor, but because our love for Him simply compels us. We obey Him and serve Him not out of obligation but because we are conformed more to His likeness as we are consumed by our ravenous, desperate love for Him. We are changed until nothing else matters except God.

Is this obsession?  Well, yes.  But this is how we were created.  God hard-wired us to be obsessed with Him, "that we might be for the praise of His glory," in order to bring the nations to Christ.  Ephesians 1:12, Matthew 28:19-20. He devised the plan and then created us with a yearning to fulfill it.  I follow His plan, not because it is perfect, but because I love God so much that it's an obsession, and I can't imagine doing anything else.

In His Service,
Stephanie