Back to School 
Pause
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV)
How do you love God? How do you show God your love with all of your heart? Have you ever considered the question?
Many of you are starting back to school this week. With this new start is a great time to consider how God is asking you to love fully and to let go of anything that holds you back.
Listen
“Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes?”
Matthew 6:25
Think
Theologian and author Frederick Buechner wrote: “…if you don’t have any doubts, you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”
In the scripture from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his followers not to worry about their life. Does Jesus mean if you doubt that you are unable to love God with all of your heart? Or is there another kind of worry that Jesus is referring to in his teaching?
Often, when you doubt, you do so with your head or your thoughts. You might question as you move forward, still trusting that God is bigger than any doubt you can imagine. These doubts are the “ants in the pants of faith” which Buechner references.
Worry is deeper, a doubt that comes from the heart, a doubt that doesn’t trust God enough to provide or to sustain you even with your day-to-day needs.
To love God with all of your heart means you will not worry about your life, despite the doubts in our head.
Josh Speight
Pray
God, help me to trust you today, despite my doubts. Help me not to worry about my life and to love you with all my heart. Amen.
Go
Go forth now in the power of the Spirit of God to be God’s helper in the world, letting go of any worry, loving God with all your heart along the way.
