Yesterday morning I was up writing ‘Irwin’ at about 5 am. I remembered suddenly it was my day to water, I looked at the clock and thought… close enough. I can water from 6 to 10 on even days, the days are hot and the lawn really needs water so I went out and turned the water on thinking of all the times I had forgot or was late turning them on, so it would be just a bit of ‘catch up’ if I started an hour early. On went the water but, just as I was going back to house I started feeling guilty but not so much that I changed my mind. Another coffee and on with my writing, except that rotten little feeling of guilt kept slithering in…I just couldn’t shake it.
I reluctantly stopped writing and started thinking about my guilty feeling. I knew why I was feeling that way but I some how resisted acting upon it, instead I went on trying to accept my reasoning for the extra sprinkling time and excusing my decision. The resistance I struggled with was the force of God’s Word.
I had come to trust His Word by using part of Jesus’ second great commandment, always looking for how I ‘love as myself’ in whatever situation I found myself in, I needed to know before contemplating how to love my neighbor as myself. Thinking of ‘how I love as myself’ always directed my thinking in very different directions compared to the way I was thinking before using the second commandment.
It was this change in my thinking, that my mind had accepted as proof of the force of God’s Word. This force always re-directed my thinking when using His Word. It was the same as centrifugal force is always present and acting upon me when riding my bike. When I ride my bike the force is always there, when I use His Word the force is always there. The force directed my mind to search my heart for ‘how I love as myself’ each time, and I began to consider this new thought to be God’s Opinion.
There is no doubt at all that what happens is Jesus’ second commandment connects my mind and heart with what God said He wrote on my mind and heart. I believe Jesus gave this 2nd great commandment knowing full well that using it would lead to accomplishing the first and most important commandment of all…To love our God with our whole heart, our whole mind, and our whole soul.
Each and every time I used this commandment God’s opinion, derived from my heart and mind, showed me the way He loves me, the way I love myself. His resulting opinion was always so much better, I found it easy to choose His Way as the best way. The more times I choose it, the more I learned how I ‘love as myself’, an the more I would love His Opinion and guidance, and the more I loved Him with my whole heart, mind, and soul.
Each time I chose His Way over mine I was repenting and experiencing a joy that is unique to following His Way. Of the greatest importance is to realize that this repenting and joy does not rely on any physical action. It is this act of repentance, or choosing His way as the better way, that produces and intense feeling of belonging, along with joy, trust, and faith in His Word. Repeating this process over and over produced permanent change in the way I now think. God’s Word is powerful and it does exert force.
It was the force of His Word that I could not resist, that turned me around and shut the sprinkler off and to wait for another hour. I am in eternal debt and joy each time I make a conscious choice in His direction, even the tiny ones led to huge strides in my trust and faith of His Word. It is only this faith that God requires of us to be saved by Him and to Him. God wrote His Laws in our heart and mind so we could all know Him, from the least of us to the greatest.
KU
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