Deuteronomy 6:5: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul and with all they might.”

When Rick Warren came out with his book “The Purpose Driven Life” he achieved the dream of every writer, to stumble upon a work that would touch the lives of millions, not to mention coming up with a best seller. I remember when the book came out I was working with a guy who attended a mainline, liberal church and he came to me all excited over this new book that came out and the class that his pastor was conducting using Warren’s book as a guide.  Here was a guy who was living the American dream.  He was married to a beautiful woman with two small children.  Their combined incomes and investments put them on the high end of six figures etc.   Yet, on numerous occasions he would admit to me that his life seemed meaningless and had no purpose.  He was desperately hoping that Warren’s book would help him find some purpose in his life.

Considering the popularity of Warren’s book, my friend seemed to share a problem that exist among multitudes of people and what is unfortunate is that the target market for this book were Christians. Yet, who hasn’t asked that question, “Why am I here?”  “What purpose is there for my life?”  About four years ago I was rushed to the hospital where I assumed that the old hour glass ran out, this old train of life had pulled away from its last station where the old man with the scythe stepped on board as we started for the final destination to Gloryland. But God decided to add more sand to my hour glass and it appears the old train made a detour on its way to heaven. I will admit I wasn’t too pleased about that. I am still a bit miffed about the whole thing. Particularly now that I am going through the fires. You know: “Lord, like this was your idea to extend my days down here, I mean even the travel industry gives you some perks when the ETA to your final destination is delayed. Oh, well that is another issue, back on topic.

With the way things have been going lately I have been wondering why God was keeping me around. I did something I rarely do and I should do more often and that is to read the final books of the Bible. I started to read in I Peter and when I read 1: 8 my spirit was quickened: “Whom having not seen, yet you love” I had a season of prayer last evening and I found myself repeating over and over: “Lord, whatever time I have left, let me not waste one minute in learning to love you.

I thought of Deuteronomy 6:5 where we are commanded to love God with all our heart, soul and might. Since I began my journey to the heart of God seven years ago I have done a number of studies on the greatest commandment, which is to love God.  The very nature of a command means that you must make a decision. Obeying a command is an act of your will. We choose to love God, it just does not happen. If we have any purpose in this life, it is to choose to love God, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer until death brings us face to face with Him. When I was a pastor I had to perform weddings. One of the most stupid questions I would ask the bride and groom is: “Do you promise to love?”  I mean I fully expected the guy to say: “Of course I do, why do you think I am standing here, what a dumb question.”  But you know that question was not for that moment it was for five years in the future when maybe she put on some weight, a few screaming kids are in the background and she is getting irritable. Suddenly you ask yourself, “Do I really love this woman?”  That is when this promise you are making at this moment takes effect.  That is when you make a conscious decision, “I don’t know if I love her or not but I made a vow to God that I would love her so dog gone it, I am going to love her, I am going to do the things I used to do when I was in love. Before I go to bed I am going to love this woman again.”  Love becomes a choice.

A friend of mine called me a romantic, maybe I am, I have spent my life trying figuring out what it means to love with your heart.  But what is this loving with your soul business? Isn’t that the same thing?  How can you love God with your soul. The word used here in the Hebrew for soul is nephesh which literally means to take a breath, refresh yourself. We are to love God with our very breath.

When I was in the hospital I had a period where I could not breathe. I remember sitting on the edge of my bed trying to breath. Nothing else in the world mattered at that time than just being able to take a nice rich deep breath. I would have given my most prized possession just for one deep breath. When they hooked me up to oxygen, I began to praise God with every breath I took. I thought of Deuteronomy 6:5 at that point, to love God with all my breath.

When you examine this word nephesh you find it has a built in commentary.  It is spelled Nun, Pei, and Shin. The letter Nun is also the word for fish. A fish is seen as swimming among the ebb and flow of the currents of a stream, just as we swim among the ebb and currents of life. The sunny days, the stormy days, the warm days and the chilly days, the Nun takes in all of life. Without breath we would not have life, we would not have the storms or sunny days. The Nun in nephesh tells us that the soul is all of our physical life. We are to love God with every part of our life, the stormy days, the sunny days, the cold and the warm.
The Nun is followed by the Pei. The Pei represents the mouth and speech. It is the breath that creates speech. The Talmud teaches that Moses was thick of tongue. Every name of God required the use of the tongue and thus Moses could not speak the name of God.  So God gave him a name he could speak without the use of his tongue, it was YHWH.   That name of God is spoke with the very breath of your life. To love God with all our soul means to express that love through every word we speak as each word we speak originates from the breath of life.

Finally the last letter is Shin which expresses a fullness, a wholeness, or enoughness.  You know even joyfulness is a discipline.  Last night I shared with a friend that I just didn’t think I was the type of person that really experiences joy.  She simply said; “You don’t even try.”  You know, even joy is an act of your will. We need to practice being joyful. We need to practice that feeling of enoughness and being satisfied with God.  Loving God with all our soul is a discipline, a practice.  It is finding him in every breath we take, and in every word we speak and learning like the Apostle Paul that His grace is sufficient (II Corinthians 12:9). To learn to love God with all our soul is what gives us our purpose in life.