Love

"Hear, O Israel... you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might." - Deut 6:4-7

"To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the great and first commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness - you shall love Him.

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" As Christ speaks these words, he too is in the wilderness. He speaks them when all is lost. He speaks them when there is nothing even he can hear except the croak of his own voice and when as far as even he can see there is no God to hear him. And in a way his words are a love song, the greatest love song of them all. In a way his words are the words we all of us must speak before we know what it means to love God as we are commanded to love Him.... "My God, my God."... Not even the cross, not even death, can destroy his love for God. Not even God can destroy his love for God because the love he loves God with is God's love empowering Him to love in return with all His heart even when His heart is all but broken.

But to love God is not a goal we have to struggle toward on our own, because what at it's heart the gospel is all about is that God Himself moves us toward it even when we believe he has forsaken us. The final secret i think is this: that the words 'You shall love the Lord your God' become in the end less a command than a promise. And the promise is that, yes, on the weary feet of faith and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love him at last as from the first he has loved us - loved us even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because He has been in the wilderness with us. He has been in the wilderness for us. He has been acquainted with our grief. And, loving Him, we will come at last to love each other...... "

- Quote by Frederick Buechner, taken from 'Secrets in the Dark' -