By Michael Smith
Today, I want to share some thoughts around connecting with God. Luke 10:27 in the NIV says “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.”
There are a few ways that we can do this. The most important one is by having a relationship with Him. There are many ways that we can do this too. So, I remember when I came to CFFD camp a couple of years ago, and I brought my 3 youth boys along, when I was youth leader at Henderson Baptist Church. Seeing them serve made my heart full.
Loving God with all your soul means loving God on the good days and the bad days. For example, I was going through a rough time, and I stopped going to Church for about 2 months, and when I started to go back to Church, things started to change. To love God with all our strength means to have faith. I remember hearing in Church that loving Him with all our strength is like exercising our faith muscles and mind.
This is plainly just thinking about how amazing, and extravagant His love for us is. A few months ago, I was asked to pick 3 songs for a day retreat, and I was reminded of the children’s song, Jesus Loves Me, and I said to the people that were attending that retreat on that day that they may have to help me sing the song because, like, I might get choked up while I am trying to sing it. Just think about it, how amazing is it that even before we had the capacity as babies, and children to understand what Jesus did for us on that cross, that still didn’t change the fact that He did it for us. Now that is love, and when we look at it in context, how can we not love God with all our mind? So, what does that mean for us today? It means that we can live our lives knowing that we are loved.
So, to finish, I just want to encourage you to spend some time with Him, in all seasons of life. Stay connected with God. Place the things that we are struggling to hold onto Him. He faced the most cruelest death in history. He can handle it. I know what it is like to not do this, and I always feel so much more connected to Him when I do.
Michael Smith has been a volunteer at our National Camp, Auckland CFFD and Drop-in Centre. He has been working with people with disabilities for several years.