God Speaking

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

(Deuteronomy 6: 5)

I recently had a delightful afternoon at my granddaughter’s school concert, she is 7. That age is so sweet and innocent. You could feel the excitement and the joy of all the children as they saw their parents and grandparents (like me), streaming into the seats. I was fortunate to have a front row view. The little play was filled with singing and action, and I could see all the little ones making sure they could see their loved ones in the audience. Of course, my little girl was making sure we were watching her. At the end of the concert the teacher said the children could go find their family. Before I realized it, my little one had jumped into my lap and was giving me a big hug. The warmth of her love overwhelmed me!

That love of that little one made me think of our Heavenly Father. We can’t give him a hug, but he is always watching us, and I think we often forget to tell him, that we love him for always watching over us. When we come to him in prayer, we usually have a long list of what we need. Giving him reasons as to why we want him to help us get through a problem. Sometimes we feel too tired to seek him or too busy. Jesus echoes Moses’s words in Deuteronomy (Matthew 22: 37) and we all need to recognize the first words.

Love with all your heart!

We can love him, but the message is we need to tell him and show him that we love him. Tell him what joy it is to be with him. Tell him how grateful you are for all his blessings. Tell him how you love reading his word. Tell him you love to walk on the path of truth with him. Tell him you love the time you spend in prayer with him. Tell him you love the fact that he loves you. 

The Psalmists knew the importance of recognising God’s love. David often put it simply 

“I, love you O lord my strength.” (Psalm 18: 1)

If we go to a concordance to check the word – love – there are pages after pages of verses containing this word. There are hardly any psalms that do not have the word love somewhere.  Both the Old and New Testament emphasise that love flows between Our Heavenly Father and his people.  

We know how important love is in our earthly families. We acknowledge how the lack of love can bring discord and damage to relationships. We also know that love produces joy and harmony in our contacts with others. Just as my little girl filled me with joy with a hug, we can bring joy to Our Father by telling him we love him, and his love will flow through us and to others around us.