How Do I Love Thee?

In her most famous poem Elizabeth Barrett Browning began, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. After asking the question her love poem recounts the many ways her love is felt. We too express our love in many ways, but not always with true passion behind it. One young suitor told his girlfriend over the phone, "I love you with all of my heart, there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you, I yearn to be with you and look upon your beautiful face and if it doesn't storm tonight I will come and see you." Obviously he was all talk and no real passion or action.

Unfortunately, sometimes our love for the Lord is almost as misguided in its demonstration. In Psalm 40:6-9 David has discovered how God really wants us to express our love towards him. After having been rescued from the pit of sin David had evidently offered great sacrifices to the Lord and then discovered there was something else God really wanted as an expression of love. He says, "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire...Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require." We often try to express our love and commitment to God by giving of our money and involvement in many activities. We need to realize that these things are good but do not really demonstrate our love for God.

God wants from us the same things David discovered that God wanted from him. He summarized them in three great responses. David said, "My ears You have opened." True love for someone will result in our being willing to listen to them. We are often so busy trying to do things for God that we don't listen to him. David continued, "I delight to do Your will, O my God...." We often say we want God's will, but do we really? In Romans 12:1,2 the discovery of God's will is summarized as presenting our body a living sacrifice, not being conformed to the world, and being transformed by the renewing of our mind." The final means of demonstrating our love for God is seen in David's declaration, "I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness...." When we truly love someone we not only want to listen to them and carry out their desires but also to tell everyone about them. Our love for God should bring forth no less.

How do we love God? We have counted the ways that are important to him. Let us follow through by listening, obeying and sharing him with those around us.