Two Great Commandments

If I live by the two great commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself,”[Matthew 22:37-8] I am living at the heart of Jesus’ teachings. I am also loving in the most radical way possible: returning to God who created me and has loved me unconditionally all of myself, loving God totally, with every ounce of my being. The difference between saying “I love God” and loving God with all that I am is profound.

I love God with all my talents, all my skills, all the wisdom I have acquired, all the hope, all the passion, all the ….well, everything that I am and will be. I love God every minute of the day, I maintain my awareness of God always; I bring all my thinking and contemplating mind to the subject of God; I bring all that my body is as healthy and ready to travel as I can be; I bring my heart—the core of who I am—and offer it to the Lord; I bring all that my soul is, I don’t stand in my soul’s way of offering itself to God.

I bring my own cares and woes, my own agendas, my calendar with its meetings, retreats and spiritual direction, with my writing projects, my care for my family and their families, my prayers for everyone I live with and deal with and others that I come to care about, my hopes and fears—I turn these all over to the Lord. Then I rest in his comfort and cease all worry or anxiety over outcomes.

I listen with all of who I am to God’s whisper inside me. I cling to what is said and let God bring those agendas and desires for me into fruition. I let the Spirit, the Spirit of the Whole Creation, transform me so that I can carry out those murmurings in my inner ear.

I love God with all of me.  That is my prayer and my intention.