Sometimes the Great Commandment and Summary of the Law seem kinda vague. I’m commanded to “love” God with my whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and my neighbor as myself. That’s great, but it’s not exactly clear just what that means.
Love is a feeling of warm regard, of deep affection. Suppose I just don’t have that feeling about God, or about my neighbor. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it — I can’t exactly change my feelings on command.
It reminds me of when I helped coach my son’s Little League teams. I’d hear coaches and parents hollering at a ten-year-old batter: “OK, Johnny, be a hitter!” Be a hitter? C’mon, coach, tell me something I can use — tell me what I can do.
A while back, it occurred to me that there are three things I actually can do to try to follow the Great Commandment and Summary of the Law:
- Learn.
- Serve.
- Trust.
These practices seem to interact, to reinforce each other, much as logs in a fireplace radiate heat and thus help each other keep burning.
Over time, I’m convinced, these practices can produce a change of heart.
Learn
To love God with your whole mind, you probably should know something about him. Paul says that God’s invisible qualities are seen in what he has made (Rom. 1.20). So it would seem to be a good idea to learn more about his creation.
Study the universe: What it is. How it got that way. Where it seems to be going. Get to know people, including yourself of
course. Try to figure out what makes them tick. Why they are the way
they are. Why they do what they do.
(If you’re not quite sure God exists, you may find, as I did, that the more you dig into these things, the more you start doubting your doubts.)
Learn from experience — your own, and that of others.
Explore what the universe ought to be — especially in terms of achieving the best for others, as discussed below — and what it would take to make that happen.
Keep an open mind; history teaches that what we "know" could well turn out to be misleadingly incomplete, or even wrong.
Serve
To love your neighbor as yourself implies wanting the best for them. So seize opportunities to seek the best for others — ideally, collaborating with others to get a multiplier effect. (And learn from your experiences.)
Share your knowledge with others, to help them better learn and serve.
Trust
Act as if things are likely to turn out OK, in the long run if not immediately. Even if you’re not convinced, do it anyway: Suspend your disbelief, and live your life as though it were true, in a modified form of Pascal’s Wager.
Where Does God Come In?
Learn. Serve. Trust. I’m convinced these practices can help us obey the commandments to love God and our neighbor.
But we don’t need to believe in God to practice these things; they’re good to do in their own right. Doubters, and even atheists, can follow these practices without qualms — and by doing so, I suspect, they increase their chances of eventually finding God.
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