Loving God

Jesus said that we are his friends (Jn 15:14-16). The foundation of true friendship is love. God wants us to love him: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind” (Mk 12:28-32). God wants our whole life to be focused on loving him. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Our closest neighbor, before it is our neighbor next door or our spouse, is first of all God. If I love God, my love for my neighbor will grow and be purified. Our lack of love for others in the world comes first of all from the fact that we do not love God enough. Hatred for others comes from a lack of love for God. A heart that hates, that does not forgive, is a heart in which there is not enough love for God.

All the difficulties we have in our spiritual life persist because we do not love Jesus enough. Sin is a lack of love for Jesus. If I love Jesus, I will neither be able nor willing to hurt him. If I love Jesus, I will accept suffering and even death, rather than sin. Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus prayed: “Take me, Lord, before I commit a mortal sin.” But when we sin willingly or persist in a state of sin, it is a sign that we do not have enough love for Jesus. Jesus so longs to be loved that he pleads for our love: “Peter, do you love me?” Peter answers: “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He insists three times. God begs for our love. “God thirsts that we should thirst for him.” When Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “I thirst,” he speaks also of a thirst that goes beyond mere water. It is a thirst for love. Do I love Jesus enough? If not, do I ask him for it often?

An important part of prayer even consists in saying to Jesus: “Lord Jesus, I love you. Lord Jesus, I want to love you.” In a marriage relationship, one wants to hear the other say that they love us. One cannot be satisfied with the love of a spouse that consists only in asking for things. So, in prayer I can pause and pray: “Lord, I love you, but my love is not so strong; increase it, enlarge it, make me truly fall in love with you.”

The more you live with someone, the more you are able to learn to love them. The more I abide in prayer, the more I will come to love Jesus. The time of intimate, conversational prayer is like a furnace that kindles our love for Jesus.

Jesus said, “I love my Father, and I act according to what he has commanded me” (Jn 14:31). Whoever loves seeks to give pleasure. He does not seek to wound. Jesus loves the Father, and his aim is to please the Father. “The one who sent me is always with me, because I always do what pleases him” (Jn 8:29). “I have come, O Father, to do your will” (Heb 10:7-10). During his life, Jesus considers it his food to “please the Father.” He says in(Jn 4:34): “My food is to do the will of my Father.” Jesus has so much love for the Father that he obeys him; he always pleases him. Do I seek to please Jesus? Love impels us to give pleasure.

Sometimes we seek to please people more than God. Sometimes we seek to please people and sin against God (Gal 1:10). Do I seek to please Jesus as much as I seek to please people? Jesus willed that those who please him be filled with good things. Whoever pleases Jesus, God hears him (Jn 9:31). “Whoever turns his ear away from the law, even his prayer is an abomination” (Prov 28:9). This means that if we do not seek to please Jesus, we block our own prayer. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us grow in our love for God and to please him.

Henri Bayemi