Time to Love

When I was younger, I used to follow my mom around. I would trail her as she moved around the house, doing chores, organizing schedules, etc. I remember just wanting to be with her as much as I could—just to be in the same room, in her presence, was comforting to me (and still is!)

In my post today, I would like to contemplate this very basic concept: when we love someone, we want to be with them.

Not only do we want to be with those we love, but we will almost certainly go out of our way to be with them. Thanks to this blog, I have recently been hyper-aware of the ways in which God’s love affects my life. But as another busy week draws to a close, I realize (with shame) how rarely I go out of my way to be with the Lord. If I truly believe God is who He says He is, and has truly given all of Himself—His perfect, holy self—to save my soul, shouldn’t I be pursuing Him with everything I have? If I truly love God, I should desire—more than anything else—to be spending time in His presence.

I think that this is true for others as well, but I will speak only for myself at the moment. I treasure my time. I never seem to have enough to fit everything in. There is always one more call to make, one chore left undone. I find myself scheduling my quiet time to be shorter so I can run that errand, or even trying to multi-task as I bible study. The issue of the over-commitment and “busy-ness” into which we throw ourselves is a serious (and sometimes messy) subject that we should definitely address. But right now I would simply like to remind those who treasure their time, as I remind myself, to be wary.

Matthew 6:21 tells us that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Let’s face it: the days are short (and as fall progresses, getting shorter). There probably isn’t enough time for everything on our lists. What I am learning is that responding to God’s love, discovering more of Him and growing to be like Christ is not something we can put on our list. It is simply an issue of love. If we truly love him, we will seek His presence before anything else, in the same way that a child seeks the presence of the parent they love and desperately need.

So, how do we seek his presence? Fortunately for us, God shows us the way. The bible tells us that 1) The Lord is near (The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. –Psalm 145:18) and that 2) He will meet us halfway (Come near to the Lord and He will come near to you. -James 4:8).

Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century French monk, wrote letters to friends regarding his pursuit of intimacy with God. These letters were posthumously compiled into the now well-known book The Practice of the Presence of God. I would seriously recommend this book to anyone who hasn’t read it, as it chronicles an earnest pursuit of God and contains practical advice for how to daily remain in the Lord’s presence. Lawrence writes of the Lord:

How can we pray to Him without being with Him? How can we be with Him without thinking of Him often? And how can we think of Him but by a holy habit we should form of it?

The more one knows God, the greater one desires to know Him. Knowledge is commonly the measure of love. The deeper and more extensive our knowledge, the greater is our love.

We must know before we can love. In order to know God, we must often think of Him. And when we come to love Him, we shall then also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure.

As Brother Lawrence so wisely points out, in order to fully experience God’s love, we must seek out his presence, a practice which takes discipline and time. This becomes a cyclical event: when we love God, we will seek to be with him. When we are with Him, we will learn even more deeply of his goodness. Because of this, we will love Him more, which will in turn cause us to seek to be with Him. And so on.

The Lord is with us always (“he will never leave you nor forsake you.” –Deuteronomy 31:6) but to grow into His likeness, we must deliberately seek Him out, and spend meaningful time with Him. When we treasure the presence of Christ, we anchor our heart to Him.

Let us practice loving the Lord with our time, as we seek first His presence in love. I encourage you to meet with the Lord today. He is waiting for you!