"Hear, O Israel; The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." -Deut 6:4-9
"I know that for the right practice of it the heart must be empty of all other things, because God will possess the heart alone; and as He cannot possess it alone without emptying it of all besides, so neither can He act there, and do in it what He pleases, unless it be left vacant to Him." -The Fifth Letter of The Practice of the Presence of God
The Possession of God, Our Hearts
A meditation on Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and the fifth letter from The Practice of the Presence of God
I can't escape from recognizing God's purpose in my pain. Everywhere I turn, it is there. Just as it seems that the suffering is always with me, so too is the explanation for why it is there. "Shall I indeed accept good from the LORD and not adversity." Job 2:10. Especially if it is this adversity that draws me near to Him; emptying me. How I hate it, but somehow, I am learning to-dare I say it-love it. No, I cannot admit that.
"Love the LORD your God with all of your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." I am weak, and my will is not strong enough to accomplish this. But the blessing sits just on the other side of that. God shows "steadfast love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." Exodus 20:6. I want that desire. I am learning to want it more than happiness in this life. But I cannot climb that mountain to get it. Is there anything more difficult than to love God with all of your heart, all of your soul, and all of your might. I cannot love anyone that well, let alone God.
So did God give me a command and a promise that is impossible to achieve? The answer is horrifying. Yes. Not in my own strength. Who then can be saved?
But with God all things are possible. This is the God that turns stone into flesh, like Adam, and so too with me. He is the God that breathes life into the dead. He makes crooked paths straight. He makes all things new. The process is painful. And Brother Lawrence knew it. "He cannot possess [the heart] alone without emptying it of all besides, so neither can He act there, and do in it what He pleases, unless it be left vacant to Him." -Brother Lawrence. Though he also saw the blessing on the other side. "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it."
God would have all of my heart in order to give me all of Himself. These trials are washing away everything that keeps Him out. Until finally my heart is completely vacant and completely devoted to Him. Jesus said, "I told you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy would be complete." John 15:11. This is not a pagan god, that desires selfish allegiance and so punishes us when we fail, but rather a God that is willing to cause pain for a short time so that He can give us joy forever. Oh, who is like you O Lord?
