Day 4: Love God with All Your Soul

I "cleaned" my apartment yesterday.

By "cleaned", I mean I moved stuff around so it doesn't look like piles of unorganized junk, which is much closer to the truth.

Why would I do such a thing, you ask?

My parents are coming down, so I have to give the appearance that my apartment isn't messy. There is a method to my madness. I'll organize it eventually. . . I just have to be in the right mood. For now, what they don't notice won't hurt me.

And now, something much more interesting.

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I have a confession: I get somewhat geeked about etymology. I'm sure I've mentioned Pastor Melissa Scott on here before, but if you don't know, she takes passages of Scripture and looks at the original languages to find a deeper, truer meaning of the intent of the writer (or perhaps I should say "Writer"). So when this chapter opened with what "soul" was translated from, my GeekMetre (which is apparently British) started flashing. The Old Testament uses nephesh, which means "to breathe," harkening back to the idea that God breathed life/soul into Adam. In the NT, the Greek word psychē which means "the self as a functional entity." Basically, the idea is that soul is the driving force of our lives, the part of us that has will, power, and passion.

There are three ways we can seek to love God with all of our soul. First, we should seek Him passionately. I know about passion. Just get me talking about Beethoven's Op. 27 No. 1. Or Hermann Schroeder's Op. 9 No. 4. In fact, let me share (unfortunately, I can't embed it into the entry, and you'll have to fast forward to about 5:45- the whole set of 6 is nice, so if you like organ music then listen away, but I learned 1, 4, and 6 under Dr. Schrock, and fell in love especially with 1 and 4):

At about 6:42/6:43, there is a transition from a fuller registration to a lighter one (the one used in the opening part of this piece), and the highest note played in this change of registration is actually (at least) four different things all in one. It's the end of the phrase before and the beginning of the restatement of the original phrase, and it's also the inversion of. . . something. . . and it's something else. . . I'd have to look at the score again to figure out the exact analysis, but Dr. Schrock and I spent about 10 minutes discovering this fact. All of those preludes are SO well crafted! It's a weird mix of being tonal without really being. . . tonal. It's not just noise, but the chords and melodic lines and progressions he uses are not what you expect. SO cool.

. . . anyway, I say all of that to say this: sometimes I make myself angry and/or sad when I see myself get all lit up about music, and then think about times where I ought to be lit up about God and instead I shy away. I know what it's like to be passionate, and I have been passionate about God. . . but I definitely need to work on consistency and not get caught up in the things the world has to offer.

Second, we have to love Him personally. I love how he words it so much, I'm just going to quote him:

You are like nothing else and no one else. You're the only one in all of creation who can love the Lord like you can. You're the only you in all of creation. When you love the Lord, you love him with a unique voice- a voice different in tone, different in soul, from any other voice God hears in all of creation. Love God uniquely with the personality he's fashioned into your life.

We should never be ashamed or afraid of how we feel we should worship God. Being in the church choir, I've learned a lot about how people worship- a lot of people look like this:



OK, that might be a little harsh, but really. . . I don't get it sometimes. I try to engage people as I can, and I don't know how successful I am, but it certainly makes me think about what must be going on in other people's heads. Besides, HOW CAN YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT ANY MUSIC THAT GLORIFIES THE LORD IN ITS LYRICS??

Sorry, I'm gonna stop before I get onto the soapbox.

Finally, we should decide to do what He wants us to do. A book by Philip Doddridge is mentioned that talks about the soul- I'll put a link at the end. The idea is that we should be putting God's will above our own(that being the highest act of love that we can show with our soul). It's really easy to seek God's will in parts of our lives, but try and take control of other parts. But that's not what we're asked to do. In fact, we are commanded to love with with ALL of our soul. That means giving Him ALL of our decisions. It's not easy, but who ever said that life was going to be easy?

Point to Ponder: When you love the Lord, you love him with a unique voice- a voice that is different in soul from any other voice God hears in all of creation.
HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE ADDRESSED THIS IN CHURCH, AND STILL PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT "HOW WORSHIP WENT" OR "HOW [THAT PERSON] WAS BEING STRANGE." No. NO NO NO. Worship is about what YOU are bringing, not what the church is doing. If the person next to you is raising his/her hands and jumping up and down, then LET THEM. If they are sitting down and singing quietly, then LET THEM. And more importantly, DO WHAT YOU FEEL. Allow yourself to actually RESPOND, rather than go through the motions. I find myself bouncing on the balls of my foot as I sing. I don't know why, but I do.
Also, please go read this. It's an excerpt from Tolkien's Ainulindale (yes, Lord of the Rings writer). It's the creation of the world, and I think it's fantastic, but I won't say much more about it because I really do want you to read it. It's not a very long excerpt. And it's kind of related.

Verse to Remember: Matt. 5:6- "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."
Amen. I've found it in my own life. I'm still discovering it. And I've found the opposite as well- seeking after sin leaves you empty.

Question to Consider: Where do I need to pray, "Lord, your will be done," in order to love God with all my soul?
Tough question- this is definitely something I'm going to explore later this evening.

A final note: this is an online version of that book (written in the 19th century and therefore public domain) if you're interested. It reads like Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter), so take that for what it's worth.