Loving God

"We love because He first loved us." So, before I can learn to love others, or even love myself, I must know how to love God. But what does it mean to love God?

Does it mean that I should give God money, like tithe to church, or donate to good causes? Does it mean that I should spend hours and hours at church, reading the Bible, or praying? Perhaps it's a little bit of both these things, but most of all, I believe that loving God means to revere Him and His word, and to cultivate a humble heart: "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at My Word."

Honestly, I haven't been loving God much; I haven't been humble, because I've been too busy being bitter and upset at life. I'm too tired and too angry to love. I'm frustrated because it seems like no matter how hard I try to "do good" in this fallen world, things will still be broken, people will still be hurting, and bad things will still keep happening.

But recently, I realized that God didn't design us for to be a fixer of things. Rather, He designed us to worship Him, He calls us to trust Him, He wants us to love Him. When we learn "to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength," and focus to on that first, we will naturally know how to love others, because it will be an outflow from our hearts, rather than a striving that we try in vain to push ourselves to do.

So I pray that God will remind me to love Him first, even if I don't feel like it. I must persevere in faith. "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

I believe that when we choose to trust in God, and believe in His goodness, despite our external circumstances, that is when we are loving God. May God help me to love Him more!