“And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.’” (Mt 22: 35-40)
…So let me put first things first today, and let myself love God, my neighbor, and myself, “before” I worry about “all the law and the prophets.” It’s easy, even if it isn’t simple.
It’s “easy” to love God, Who loves me unconditionally, having created me, and Who continues to sustain and bless my life, regardless of how I “turned out,” or how or who I am today, according to the standard of “the law and the prophets.” It’s also “easy,” albeit not simple, to love both myself and my neighbor, because God loves both of us, as described above, warts and all.
So let me let go of my “Yes, but-s…” today, and let myself love God, my neighbor, and myself, regardless of the unmet expectations that may have disappointed me, with regard to God, myself, or others. I can make the dignified decision to love, today, as God dignifies me with His love, regardless of any expectations that I imagine He or others may have had of me. Today I choose to love, regardless of what I get in return, because that’s The Way of my God, Who loves me, and accepts my love, above and beyond His “expectations,” as expressed in “all the law and the prophets.”
