What If You Make Decisions As An Act of Love?
It was a little over one year ago that we quietly started having the conversation about how we could best serve my husband’s mom and aunt. His mom is a widow, and she and her sister (who is single) have lived together in a house for a few decades now. It was getting hard for them to do the lawn mowing and house maintenance, and we wanted to be helpful kids. (Isn’t it about time the kids start waiting on the parents?) But how best to go about that?
As we were slowly working through this decision, I woke up one night thinking about it. The Lord brought God’s greatest command to my mind:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. (Luke 10:27a NIV)
I’m fascinated by the idea that we can love God with our minds. Can you think of anything that requires more mental energy than making decisions?
So I lay in bed and prayed, “Lord, I want this decision-making process about caring for Matt’s mom and aunt to be a great demonstration of love to you from my brain.” That’s an unusual prayer. I had never before thought about deciding things as an act of great love for God. This was going to take some getting used to.
When you’re making a decision, your brain works the problem all the time, day and night. Your brain asks questions and formulates solutions and trouble shoots and imagines outcomes. I found it felt like an afternoon coffee break with fresh donuts, to halt the mental processing and say, “Lord, I love you. I love you so much. Before I go any further, I just want you to know I’m doing all of this thinking for you.”
It’s calming to love God with your mind.
You will have a mountain of decisions to make this year, large and small. I challenge you to memorize Luke 10:27 and practice meditating on this verse every time your decision comes to mind. Turn toward God with your mind and let love undergird your thinking.
I think I understand what you mean by the afternoon coffee break and fresh doughnuts. Yesterday, I was bothered by something that was none of my business and instead of stewing on it and disecting it (not sure if that’s the correct word; what I do is look at it from ●many●different angles) like I usually do, I just said a quick prayer of ‘It’s in your hands,Lord, but I do hope he’s okay’. And, that was that! I am/was very surprised I had no desire to hash and rehash it.