If there was pictures in Haiti I won’t ever forget, it is not those I took with a camera but rather those that gave me real life substance to the words I find in Scripture.
Mark 12:30 – Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
We were visiting houses and praying for those in the church. We came upon this one woman’s house and one of the women participants in our group prayed for her. The participant praying sensed that this other woman routinely had been on her knees, crying, and sobbing to God in prayer. The participant assured her that God has seen every tear and that these tears are bottled up and kept by God. It turns out, this woman had been on her knees in prayer through the months asking God to save her family. Tears had been expressed in her hopes of seeing her family grow up in the Lord. This to me was a snapshot of what it means to love God with all your soul. Where your soul so aches for God and for others to know Him that it leads you to your knees and the only way you can express how you feel is through tears.
One of the pastors we had served with last time had remembered the prayer requests of the team and had been praying almost every day for these prayer requests. I was shocked that he remembered! But you could tell that he always had the things of God on the forefront of his mind. His thoughts were consumed on the Word and on the needs of others. This is what he chewed on and thought about. A singular-aimed thought life which sought to make much of God. This to me was a picture of loving God with all your mind.
The pastor we served with, Pastor Junior, would go to this mountain of prayer every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. He took us with him on Friday. But he would spend time pursuing God in prayer, asking for His kingdom to break into his community and church. He would go early in the morning and do business with the Lord. You could tell Christ had won the Pastor’s affections and devotion. He desired Christ above everything else. This to me as a snapshot of what it means to love God with all of your heart.
And lastly, Pastor Junior wanted to have celebration services every night in honor of us being there. These services lasted from about 5 pm – 8:30 pm. Meanwhile, every opportunity there was, you would see Pastor Junior dancing like no one was watching praising the Lord. Of that three and half hour period, 2 and a half were probably spent in worship. He had on long pants, a long sleeve shirt, and a nice tie most nights. You would see the sweat coming through his shirt. You could see the sweat coming through all of our shirts. But that did not stop him from worshipping. He held nothing back. Every calorie given over in serving and dancing for the Lord. This to me was a picture of what it means to love God with all of your strength.
Lord, help us love without reservation and hesitation. You are worthy of our whole soul, heart, and mind, and you are worthy of all of our strength. We were made to give it all to you. May we rush and tarry to do so!
