Commanded Love

Love is sometimes pictured as a meeting of personalities in some mystical assurance of baseless emotion. The intellect is put on the other side of a high stone wall, and a chill, grey atmosphere is contrasted to the riot of colored flowers and warm sun-filled grass on the “emotion” side of the wall.

The impression is given that one needs to make a choice between “mind” and “heart,” and that to choose one is to deny the other. “Come away from the harsh use of logic, you over there on the cold side,” shout some. “Love, feel, experience—don’t question. Just let yourself go. Is love there? Is it not there? Don’t ask. The very asking may drive it away. Jump into experience and feel.”

Is this true? Human love, though limited and imperfect, can grow and deepen through the years. How does this take place?

Love grows through deepening understanding, a better knowledge of the other person. It grows through expression. If one discovers a new reason to admire, enjoy, and be stimulated by the other person, he should verbalize this discovery. “I love the way your mind works.… I love the compassion you have for minority people.… I love your sensitivity to my need of music right now.… Thank you for getting those concert tickets for tonight.… How nice of you to think of making those tapes for Johnny in the hospital. I love you for that.” Concrete reasons for loving another human being need to be expressed to that person, and the expressing will help the person who is doing the verbalizing also.

Dwelling in one’s mind on reasons for love does not diminish the feelings of love; it increases them. Making new discoveries of qualities in the other person’s character through recent things he or she has done adds to the content of love. And verbalizing these discoveries fixes in the memory things that increase love. Love will grow as reasons for love are discovered, thought about, expressed verbally, and remembered.

The question is asked, “How can I experience love for God? I want a flood of warm love for him, but he seems so far away, and I feel nothing.” Is the answer to be one of urging each other to wait for a mystical spiritual experience during which we will be plunged into a riot of color and sunlight on the emotion side of the wall? Are we to put away intellect and logic?

Listen as Jesus speaks in Matthew 22:37. Jesus is being asked what the great commandment is. What is the basic and first commandment? “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.”

The whole man is to be involved in loving God. This is a command. The command is not only to love God but to love him with heart and soul and mind. The whole person is to be blended together in this love, not divided into compartments.

The mind is to have an important part in this. How can we experience a growing love for God? By discovering logical, reasonable, understandable reasons for loving him. And then we can verbalize our discoveries and express our love to impress upon our memories the reasons we have for loving God. “God, I love you for your compassion to Ninevah in sending Jonah to make truth known, to warn the people in time.… How I love you for letting people come to know Jesus day by day personally so that they can also know you, the Father.… Thank you, Father, for keeping a record of the many prayers you answered in detail centuries ago, and just a hundred years ago as Hudson Taylor went to China.… Thank you for your gentleness in supplying our need for food, and for adding the roses yesterday.” Love for God increases as the reasons for love are considered, spoken aloud, written on paper.

Love for God sometimes burns low, like a dying fire of pale pink and grey coals. Reading his Word, looking for fresh understanding of what he is like, acts as a breeze to fan the dying fire into a warm glow. “Love the Lord thy God with all thy mind.”

How foolish we are in human relationships when we dwell upon each other’s weaknesses and mistakes. How easily the fire dimmed with a dash of cold water when the sensitive deed, the proffered rose, the cup of tea, the concert tickets are ignored and instead a stream of criticism blasts the air—“Why did you forget to mail the letter?… Why did you drop that dish?… Why have you brought mud in on your feet?… Why didn’t you tell me first?”

Searching for reasons to express love, thinking about them, formulating appreciation into words, takes time. Dwelling on each other’s mistakes can absorb the time together so that there isn’t time to increase love. Emotion needs a base if it is to be a solid continuing experience. We can help ourselves to have a continuity in our relationships when we come to recognize that there is no wall between intellect and love.

There is a danger in constantly dwelling on things we find in God’s Word, or in the abnormal universe, that distress us. God is perfect. His love and compassion, his wisdom and holiness, his creativity and diversity, his gentleness and kindness, are perfect. When we come up against anything that causes us to feel like screaming with annoyance at another hman being, we can know we have not understood the thing that bothers us.

Of course, we must be honest in our thinking. But if we allow the things that bother us to absorb a large part of our time, if we read and reread lines we do not understand that bring feelings of fear, criticism, coldness, and uncertainty, the effect will be one of throwing cold water on the embers of our love for God. Our minds can be occupied with thoughts that distort the reality of the character of God.

We are commanded to love. We are commanded secondly to love our neighbors, but first to love God. That command has within it the key to increasing that love. That command shows how to pull down the false wall between intellect and faith, reason and trust, understanding and feeling, mind and love. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Search for ways to fill your mind with thoughts that will give continuity to love—before you are in his presence.

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