In the Middle of the Middle of Your Day

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Mark 12:30

This spring in Children's Choir, we are trying to teach them songs that come straight from Scripture as a way to help them understand the importance of memorizing scripture and helping them memorize about 15 passages along the way. Mark 12:30 is one of those passages. The song is "Love the Lord" by Lincoln Brewster. As we teach a song and a scripture verse, we spend a great deal of time talking about what that verse means. This verse always reminds me of Camp Crestridge, the summer camp I attended as a child and teenager. The heart of the camp is Council of Progress. During this solemn ceremony each week, a staff member presents the girls with a challenge from one of the four areas of the Council of Progress: spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical. I am always reminded of this verse when I think back to all of the challenges I received growing up through Council of Progress. Each area is addressed in this verse that tells us how we are to love our Lord God! Physically, with all your strength. Mentally, with all your mind. Spiritually, with all your soul. Emotionally, with all your heart! This is a high calling and probably the reason why Jesus calls in the greatest commandment. If we can love God with all of our beings, in every way, in every step, we can truly have fellowship with Him and out of that love comes the second commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. We will never be able to love our neighbors as God designed until we understand what it means to love God is this way.

I was trying to determine the best way to help the children in my choir to remember the Scripture reference. I asked them what the middle hour of the day is. Of course their answer, 12 o'clock. Then I asked what is the middle of the middle hour. Some of them got that one, 12:30. I said, "You can remember this reference if you think about the middle of the middle." But it wasn't until a couple of days that the Holy Spirit hit me over the head with this as it applied to my own life.

How many times do we say, "I'm in the middle of something. I can't do that right now." I say that quite a bit. To my students, to my family, to my friends, to my coworkers. And to God. I use that as an excuse with my Heavenly Father so often. "I can't right now God. I'm in the middle of something. I'll come back to that later." And I realized that sometimes I show my love for God with the same attitude. The Holy Spirit spoke to me this week, showing me that God wants me to love Him with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, at all times. Even in the middle of the middle of my day!

I feel like I'm right back as a child in that chapel at Camp Crestridge receiving a challenge during the Council of Progress. This time, the challenge comes from my Lord. My prayer is that God will transform me so that I can love him as I should at all times, even in the middle of the middle of my day.