With all your soul…

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). 

As we continue a series on the Shema (Sh’ma) found in Deuteronomy 6, let’s take a moment to talk about what “with all your soul” means.

The word “soul” comes with a lot of cultural baggage. In the context of the Shema, this is one of three components of how we display love to God. The first being loving God with your heart: passion, drive, purpose, and intention. The third being our mind, which includes our knowledge, wisdom, and reasoning. Our soul, sandwiched between these two, could easily get lost in the shuffle. Having a “soul” is an intangible concept; something we are aware of but have difficulty putting into words.

This fall I taught a class on the heart of God from David’s perspective and spent hours and hours reading, writing, and praying through how to express the many aspects of embracing God’s love. Through this process, I found myself in awe of the emotional connection God allows us to have with Him when we rely on Him with our spiritual selves. Before studying the Psalms and David’s story so intentionally, I had never noticed that, like David, my spiritual connection with God was built on a dependency on Him. When I read others’ reactions to David’s words and thoughts I realized that I had a deeper soul connection with God than I realized. The work He had done in me to allow me to embrace His love was not a waste. Previously, I thought that experience was universal.

Depth of connection with God will never be a competition, therefore I never thought of looking at my soul connection with God as something to measure. Since it is not something that can be measured or weighed, why try? However, during the weeks of creating the the devotional to go along with the class, I began to notice the slow (snail-speed), incremental work God had done in my emotional and relational self. God’s love for me shocked me, humbled me, and terrified me all at once. But, with the sweet taste on my lips, I refuse to keep this delicious flavor of true love to myself.

The process of understanding the desires of my soul, started years back when some friends of mine really challenged me to be more honest and open about my feelings and experiences. Prior to them asking me to be more authentic, I thought I was doing just that. I was sharing my thoughts, fears, concerns, and problems as they rose to the surface.

Over time, their intentionality in loving me through my lack of understanding of my emotional depth. From there, I began to ask God to show me more of my inner soul. He not only displayed my inability to do that without Him, but brought attention to each attempt as a huge victory. The community He provided me, reading about David’s similar experiences of emotional complexity through reading Psalms, and the conversations with the Lord about my struggle to let Him love me, have each been vital to open a portal to my soul.

When God gave me words for a book about authenticity and transparency, I audibly laughed, avoided, and mocked His promptings. Considering writing in general was ridiculous since I had been a low-grade performer in school. I have never felt capable of doing God’s heart justice.

When I felt this burden, God provided people in my life who noticed the power of my imperfect writing and unconventional style. What was graded highly in the traditional school setting does not limit what is valuable to our God (or to you if you are still reading). My misunderstanding of what God is capable of makes sense. No one else in my life is as intentional, loves me as unconditionally, or chooses to be as committed to me as He is. The more I experience His love, the more I want to prove to Him that I am undeserving. No matter how much I see the fruit of my life, my obedience to write is an overflow of choosing to give my soul what it needs. It is how I display my gratitude for His generosity.

My desire to receive the love of God is the deepest desire within my soul.

Photo by Jean-Daniel Francoeur

Our souls were created to receive love. If you look around, all people are searching for whatever they believe love is. Unfortunately, the freedom and salvation God gives us from our failures often misguides us to lean in to things that give us immediate gratification and to excuse us from the pursuit of what God sees is best for us.

We are wired to crave God’s love in a relational, emotional way that this world cannot satisfy. The soul exists to allow us to experience His perfect, unconditional, unrestricted love. This is the spiritual journey: our souls actually believing with every part of ourselves that we are treasured, loved, and worth loving…from the perspective of the God of the universe. Our perspective, while valid and based in our real experiences, is not part of God’s decision process of whether or not to love us. His love is not for Him. He only loves us because that is who He is.

If we limit our view of ourselves to what we deserve and who we are, we restrict our value to human perspective. In contrast, the way God sees us seems incredible and often too good. The opposite is true. His love is more real and safe than anything we have experienced. He doesn’t care if we deserve it. Love is who He is.

Our perspective on His love is corrupted by the freewill of people who worship themselves. Before we get carried away at blaming others, we must notice: we are among those who worship ourselves. At times, we hurt ourselves most. Without question, we love and worship ourselves regularly, but not in healthy ways.

Desperate to show ourselves we matter, because we want to be loved so badly, we compromise our own value and let people love us in transactional or cheap ways. Instead of connecting with others in a real, vulnerable ways, we often place distance in relationships that are real. To protect ourselves from hurt and betrayal, we keep things as surface-level as possible. Our culture’s landscape reflects this desire to keep everyone, including God, at arms length.

But, our souls know better. We are not truly satisfied by any other love. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are those who listen to the longing of their soul. Those who crave to be close to and known by God desire to know, love, and trust Him. On the surface, we see the behavior of one who seems to love God and make assumptions about their soul and intention. Behavior only is half of the equation.

Only God knows our intentions and posture of why we give and receive love. At times, we even lie to ourselves about the condition of our souls. Our life can only reflects how much we know, love, and trust God. The way we behave is secondary. Obeying God out of obligation, fear, shame, or to earn God’s love are all in vain. A desire to know, love, and trust God is where we are transformed. By developing our connection with Him, our soul is nourished and restored.

If we actually love someone, we yearn for time and connection with them. When our soul cries out to be loved, God is the only salve that heals. Money, power, comfort, validation, control, sex, and accomplishments cannot give us fulfillment. Our soul cries out to be loved, but we look for that love to be satisfied in all the wrong places. To crave love is the human condition; to look for it outside of God is a common experience; this is the result of our delusion that we can save ourselves.

Do you love yourself enough to give your soul what it truly desires? If you love God, work to agree with Him. Intentionally work to believe that you matter to Him. He will help you advocate for yourself, determine what is true, and guide you to trust His voice. His voice can be the one we hear above leaders, pastors, parents, critics, friends, and even our own inner monologue. Humans will always default to question and discredit God’s love because it simply doesn’t make sense.

The only pure, healthy love is the perfect love of our God. Period. All other love is imperfect and flawed. The love of others can help us receive God’s love, but only when we know that human love and God’s love are different. One gives happiness, the other fulfills us. If we only think we deserve happiness, we don’t love ourselves enough. Happiness is fleeting. God’s love is satisfying.

God gives us more than what we deserve. He offers us a love that transforms, heals, mends, and is not based on our behavior. His love cannot be destroyed, erased, or undone. Do not cheapen His love by relying on the love of humans to understand it. Human love can contribute to our understanding, but humans cannot accurately portray perfect love.

Dream up the most amazing love you can imagine. Consider being loved in every moment, in every environment. Imagine a love that has no expectation, limit, or condition. Allow yourself to believe in a pure love that is not something you can buy, manipulate, or earn. This kind of love is available to us. God wants our souls to experience radical love.

It is difficult to comprehend that this unimaginable love is real. Yet, this is why our souls crave unconditional love. Even though His love is so beautiful and intentional that it feels too good to be true, it is. But, why would God make us capable of dreaming about a love that doesn’t exist? Maybe the hardest part for us is that deep down we believe it exists, we simply struggle to accept and receive it.

You are not alone in your struggle to receive God’s love. I am right there with you.

My soul definitely craves this kind of love. I am also scared to receive it. Many days I think my unworthiness disqualifies me from being able to be loved so wonderfully. What God has taught me recently is that even if we think something is too good to be true, the truth is firm and impenetrable.

We are loved. Yes, we are unworthy, but we are still offered the kind of love we dream up and write movies, books, and poems about. God’s love is available to us; there are no strings attached. The only thing standing in our way of allowing our soul to receive it, is our own fear and shame. Let Him mend your heart by sharing your fears, shame, and doubt with Him.

We need to rely on Him and others who are intentionally working to receive His love. Honest, imperfect people can speak truth, show up, and display different aspects of His love to us. Doing this work together makes the process more tangible. When people let us love them, we get to practice believing this type of love is real. As people offer genuine love to us, they teach us to invite God’s genuine love. Then and only then, can we piece together and comprehend the vastness of the reality: we are loved in a way that is too big and complicated for us to understand.

Notice the imperfect love you have experienced with humans does not change, impact, or restrict God’s love for you. Let Him, who is love, redefine the desires of your heart. May you see He is the fulfillment of your every desire. Join me. Invite your soul to receive His love which is within reach.

Love Him with all your soul.