I don’t remember whether I hadn’t slept well that night, or whether I’d gotten to bed too late the night before, or both. But I do remember hearing the sounds of my son’s bedroom door opening and his footsteps coming towards our room, and having to force my eyes open. I was trying to become coherent enough to beg Kenny to “please go back to bed” when he pushed my door open and plopped down on the floor.
“Mommy,” he said, smiling up at me, “I had a great dream about loving you.”
Suddenly, I didn’t resent having been awakened anymore.
I was still tired. But I couldn’t have wished for any better or sweeter way to wake up.
I thought about his words many times that day, and I’ve thought about them often since. In fact, Kenny has told me almost the same thing several other times. Sometimes, he tells me he’s had a dream about loving me. Sometimes, as I tuck him into bed, he tells me that he is going to have a dream about loving me, and I know that as he slips into Dreamland, he expects it to be sweet with thoughts of me.
I love Kenny all the time. I love him every second of every day, even when I don’t much like what he’s doing or how he’s behaving. But when Kenny declares his love for me in such a precious, beautiful way? My heart can’t contain all the love I have for him, and it overflows.
I want to thrill God’s heart in the same way my son thrills mine. I want Him to rejoice in my frequent, heartfelt expressions of love. I know that’s what you want, too. So why don’t we do it?
Maybe we think we don’t have enough time to cultivate a love relationship with God. Some days, it seems we don’t even have time to locate our Bible, much less read it and spend in-depth time in prayer. Maybe it feels hypocritical to tell God we love him when we’re well aware of our inconstancy and sin. Maybe we’ve just never thought much about how God would feel if we were to tell Him we love Him as often and as meaningfully as we tell our children—maybe even more.
But whether we don’t make time for God, or we think we have to wait until we’re perfect to start expressing our love for Him, or we simply never think about it, we’re depriving God of the expressions of love that He deserves to receive from His beloved child and longs to hear.
If Kenny never told me He loved me, I’d begin to wonder if he really did. If he only expressed his love because he thought he should, I’d wonder if he really meant it.
Yet we sometimes limit our expressions of love for God to reciting the words of a song we aren’t really thinking about singing, or to intellectual assents to the fact that yes, we love Him.
Both singing and declaring the truth are important. But where are the spontaneous expressions of love, motivated not by what everyone else is doing or by what we think we should do, but by love?
Why do we not constantly pour out our love upon God, Who alone is worthy of it?
Oh, Father, forgive us for failing to express our love to You as we should. We want to love You with the passion with which You loved us, or at least come as close as a human being can. Father, we declare right now that we do love You, with all of our being. We’re grateful that You accept our imperfect love. Convict our hearts whenever we don’t love You wholeheartedly, and teach us that our greatest delight comes not in the earthly expressions of love that we receive, but in the love relationship between us and You. We want to spend the rest of our lives and then eternity loving You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
2 Samuel 6:14—And David danced before the LORD with all his might.
Mark 12:30—And you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.