Norma L. Brumbaugh

Like any friendship, loving someone requires spending time with them to develop the friendship. God is no exception. You have to want to know God and not hold back. Then pursue him with your heart, soul, and being. God loves us. We are privileged to love him back. (sounds good)

Faith Expands when our CAPACITY to love grows.

We may have learned to love God through intellectual means without engaging the whole self. This falls short because it compartmentalizes faith. For example, should you love your children or mate with only your mind, that would not be enough. You can say “I Love You” a million times, but the words are not enough to carry the love the distance. (yup) Meaningful love is expressed through heart actions and a ton of caring, little pieces of life. My parents rarely told me they loved me, but I knew it and never questioned it. Their lives proved their love. (sure did)

Love for God that brings love to the surface of our being—where tears form even in unemotional individuals–is life-giving to all. When we love God with heart, mind, and soul, this love will produce love for others. (beautiful) Loving others is a natural by-product—for God’s love in us is regenerative. God helps us see others like he does—through his love for them. Love like this will give out love from its own love because it cannot keep the love to itself. It springs forth. The love just ‘is.’ (do you give/love spontaneously? bingo)

God-life in SOUL-BEING is faith centered.

Good things are cultivated. (that’s how it happened for me) My love for God was encouraged through an ingrained habit, a weekly practice. When I was a school teacher, every Saturday morning found me sitting on the corner of the living room couch with my Bible, notebook and pen, a couple of devotionals in hand while sitting in the silence. I let the kids sleep in, but I didn’t. I made them Saturday breakfast when they got up (pancakes or waffles from scratch), but then went back to my focused time with God, which lasted until almost noon. (when I could take the time)

This was my favorite time of the week. I looked forward to this, and carved it out of my schedule as sacred. I prayed, meditated, contemplated, read scripture passages, studied Scripture, reflected, pursued God and his truths, took notes and wrote down scriptures and my thoughts about them. My heart, soul, and being were fully engaged in seeking, learning, knowing, and being thankful. I pursued God simply because I desired to pursue him while also apprehending his treasures and delights. God became precious to me in the process. (that’s real living; there’s nothing quite like it)

I HUNGERED for God.

God met me there every Saturday. My love increased as my intent caused me to be consistent in seeking God. These were sweet days. God became real as real can be. The refreshing part of this, which I didn’t have time for during the weekdays, was the time I spent in listening and in meditation, when my soul was ministered to in precious sweetness. Sometimes I was being convicted or corrected, but when God does it, you can accept it as loving and kind. (He’s a good daddy)

SUGGESTIONS for gaining intimacy with God.

Open yourself to God in a fuller capacity. Allow God to come close, drop the barriers (the things you don’t like to think about); shame, blame and bitterness.
Go through the book of John and underline the word ‘love’ with a colored pencil. Allow these verses to sink in and penetrate your heart and mind.
Contemplate God’s love, his loving actions towards you, others, and the world. Allow compassion for others to define these prayerful moments. Ask God to reveal your prejudices, wrong thinking, withholding of affection. (ouch!)
Absorb God’s truth in your inner being. Take a favorite verse and reflect on it. (sigh)
Remove what hinders your relationship with God. Ask him to help you. Refresh your mind. Seek the mind of Christ. (help me, Jesus)

You don’t want to be fake? (good) Then take the plunge. (go deep) Let me know when you resurface and come up for air. (gasp) Share out with our friends here. (please do) We’d love to hear what God is doing in your life. We’re in this together. I’m pulling with you. God bless you. (thank you)

Q & A: Have a question for me? Leave it in the comments.

How did you come to love God? How did I come to love God? What does it take to love God? Sort and classify. What in your experience tells you that you love God? We love with the mind. We love with the heart. We love best when love in the mind reaches to connect with love in the heart. Full-circle love encompasses the whole being: heart, mind, and soul.

Do YOU love God?

Back to the original question. How did you come to love God? Was it practice? (sure) Was it intentional? (sure) Was it desire? (most certainly). Was it in response to God’s love for you? (absolutely) Or was it incremental, a little more each year? (probably) Maybe it isn’t true love quite yet but a growing fondness for God. (heading in the right direction)

Let’s be honest here, loving God isn’t something you can manufacture. (that’s true) But it is something you can desire, experience and grow. (now you’re talking)

How did I come to love God?

I plumbed the depths to sort and classify how I came to love God. For many years I loved God without thinking about it. I loved God for what he did, who he was, his majesty, his attributes and for everything I knew about him. I had a holy reverence and a healthy respect for God. I believed in God and knew his goodness. Spending time in bible reading and prayer fostered this closeness with God.

But my love for God fell short in one particular aspect. (didn’t know it) Although my love for God was meaningful and real, it came up short. (Oh no!) My love had not moved me as in partaking of living water. (not enough, anyways) Loving God wasn’t that inner connection you find in intimate love. The kind of love where your hunger is filled, your soul is joined together, (we’re talking soul-mate), safe and secure, to know and breathe as one.

Prior to intimate joining with God, I loved God in a limited, but sincere, way. (not enough)

You don’t know what YOU don’t know.

How did I change it up? Well, for starters, I didn’t; but God did. God lit the flame and grew a desire. Love for God, like love for others, takes openness on our part. An apt question, “Is God on the throne of your life?” When God takes center stage in your life– things begin to happen. (like what?)

Love takes God entering in—being invited in—and him placing his love, his being, into our heart and then taking over wherever we allow him to. The path of least resistance is to compartmentalize our faith, to manage our spiritual walk. (not good) But when God is managing it, when God is in control, you can’t fake it or maintain business as usual.

As a result of God being given the reins to our lives, we change our mind about how we’re going to live out our faith. Our determination to love God is acted upon. Soon our desires change. Our bent to rebel becomes more obvious (and we nip it in the bud), and our capacity for love increases exponentially (becomes part of who we are and how we think).

It works like this. For example, when we determine to love our neighbor, a choice is made to begin loving them. Reality sets in and effort is required. But the part we may lack, the ‘loving them,’ is a God thing. (so we ask God for it, hint, hint) God places the love for our neighbor in our heart. The mind says, this is what we’re going to do. The heart says, okay, let’s get started. The Spirit says, I’m going to enable this, show you how, and make it happen.

We may ASK for God’s love.

All love is related to God’s love. How do we come to love God? Can we change our desires? Yes, we can, but this is only part of the solution. On the heels of that, comes a harder question. How can we worship a God we don’t love? (pretty hard to do) Or maybe it is an infantile love. Worship may be wrapped up in form and may be real (unless we don’t mean it) but worship can become much more meaningful when passion for God accompanies our love for him.

In that scenario, we are worshiping ‘what’ God does and has done, who he is—the greatness and goodness of God—but we are not fully engaged in worshiping his very eternal essence.

To be continued next week. (yippee!)

Y’all come back now, y’hear. (counting on it)

CONNECTING WITH GOD IN EVERYDAY LIFE