Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and if I can’t get back to sleep, I get up to pray. It’s become a habit that I have learned to appreciate. We have a long hallway in our house, and I love to walk up and down that hallway seeking the Lord.
Yesterday morning in the early hours, I began my time with God, as I usually do, in worship and praise. I found myself pondering the question, how do I show God how much I love him? What is his love language?
Which took me in my thinking to the book,The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts
- words of affirmation
- quality time
- gifts
- acts of service
- physical touch
As I began pondering and praying, I found myself thinking that, with the obvious exception of physical touch, all these are ways we can express our love to God.
Words of affirmation: God loves to receive our praise and worship. It even says that He inhabits the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3).
Quality time: Our lives are so busy that it’s easy to neglect spending time in God’s presence. Or perhaps more relevant, how do we, (like Brother Lawrence) learn to experience His presence even in the mundane busyness of life.
Gifts: Although it includes finances, I don’t think this is the primary way we give to God. We give him our lives, becoming a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1). He’s delighted when our lives bear fruit-–and this includes the fruit of others becoming followers of Jesus.
Acts of service: It sometimes gets overlooked because we cannot earn our salvation, but God delights in our service for him-–as we lay down our lives to help others. Just yesterday, thinking about acts of service being a way to express my love for Him helped me to perform an act of service that I usually prefer to avoid.
I know that this doesn’t begin to touch on other ways we can love God like obedience and the quality of our character, but I found it a helpful concept.
What do you think?
Adapted from Felicity Dale’s blog, Kingdom Women. Felicity Dale is the author of numerous books including The Black Swan Effect and Simply Church. She is an advocate for women in the church and trains people to start simple, organic house churches around the world.
