Tevye:
But do you love me?
Golde:
Do I love him?
For twenty-five years I've lived with him
Fought with him, starved with him
Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that's not love, what is?
Throughout the week as I’ve been reciting the Shema (the greatest commandment), both morning and night, I have found myself thinking about love. This “commandment” to be specific. A commandment to love God. Not a suggestion, not a request nor a plea. It’s unequivocally a command.
We’re not commanded to love our parents but to honor them. We’re not commanded to love our kids but to bring them up in the way they should go. We are, however, commanded to love God and to love our neighbor. A love that doesn’t come naturally for either one.
God is hard to love. He’s invisible, he’s chronically late and his ways are, more often than not, diametrically opposed to my ways. He’s hard to love when I get news that a friend’s cancer has increased, not decreased; when another friend is turned down for a job again and again; when I see my granddaughter continue to live in the results of her brain trauma. These are moments when I just look away. I don't know what to say to him. How to feel about him. I only know that he appears absent and my heart feels empty.
But, in God’s wisdom, knowing that there would be times like these, he knew I would need action steps in order to maintain my love for him.
Action steps found later in the Bible such as…
Serving him
Walking in his ways
Keeping his commands
Hating evil
Obeying His word
Loving one another
As I have faced some difficult realities, these and others, I have put this list before me. And put my mind and heart to the task of loving God. Taking my eyes off of the disappointments and pain of my surroundings and replacing them, instead, with this to-do list. A list that helps me keep my eyes on God. To love him with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my might. Going through the motions in order for God to get me back to center. Back to trusting in Him. Back to loving him.
So, the words of this song from Fiddler on the Roof have been playing over and over in my head.
God:
But do you love me?
Me:
Do I love him?
For 71 years I’ve worshiped him
Prayed to him, confessed to him
Through hurt and pain, I still am his
If that’s not love, what is?
God:
Then you love me?
Me:
I suppose I do
God:
I love you, too
God/Me:
It doesn't change a thing
But even so
After 71 years
It's nice to know
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