mind lovin' - part one

Love the Lord your God with all your mind.

When the NFL schedule comes out, you scan down week by week and look for the easy games… the ones where you can count on your team coming out on top.

A month ago, when I decided to spend some time meditating on Mark 12: 28-30, my eyes immediately jumped down to this segment “with all your mind”. Sure, I could struggle through that whole heart and soul thing, but once we came to “mind” I would be in my natural environment. It would be an easy win.

After all, I am a “mind guy”. Love to think, imagine, strategize, calculate, create. Left side or right, take your pick. Find the needle in the haystack, see the forest despite all them trees. I couldn’t wait to come here and share with you what it means to love the Lord with all your mind. An epic series for sure. Three posts, maybe more.

And yet…

For a week now, I’ve sat before the Lord and pondered what it means to love God with all my mind, and I’ve come up empty. No words of inspiration, no free-flowing prose. Another day would come and go. Nothing to share with you again.

And then this morning, my eyes opened.

My mind belongs to me. It is mine. It is the one place I can go to get away. I can be sitting with you having an intelligent conversation and be two other places at the same time. Mental multi-tasking. I reflect, project, think, ponder, fantasize and analyze… and it’s the only thing I can call my own.

Sure, I invite God in. Most of my conversations with Father, Christ and Spirit are voiceless. Even when praying intently, though, I’ll catch myself having two or three other streams of thought happening at the same time. It’s also where I go to hide and get away when so moved. It’s my safe place. And I don’t want to give it away.

So tonight I am going to reflect on another passage in Mark, now seen under a new light. It reads: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

I’ve never been one hung up on money, but perhaps riches come in many shapes and sizes. If so moved, please feel free to share in what ways are you rich...
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