I look forward to the days where my schedule allows time for me to pick up my kids from school. It gives me an opportunity to greet them as soon as they walk out of the building and then ask questions about their day on the ride home. My younger kids are usually more excited to see me and are more eager to share details about their day. As they get older, the excitement of seeing me wanes and it does not matter who is picking them up, they are simply happy to be finished with school. I feel blessed to have a daughter who is still young enough where, at the first sight of me, she begins a sprint in my direction. With a smile on her face and calls of “Daddy, Daddy” she leaps into my arms for an embrace. The unbridled excitement that she displays warms my heart and gives me a sense of peace. At that age, the school day is long and there is so much information coming her way. So, for her to see someone she loves waiting for her at the end of a long day brings a feeling of excitement that is uncontrollable.
Thinking about my daughter’s reaction, I began to wonder, is there anyone that can elicit that level of excitement for us? It is easy to imagine having similar feelings about a spouse, a parent, a child, a friend, or anyone with which we experience feelings of love. But what about the most important example of love that exists in our lives? I am referring to our relationship with God. God is infinite and beyond comprehension and therefore, so is his love. As hard as we try, we cannot fathom how much God loves us. It is a divine love that has no end. His love is immense and unwavering. It is an amazing gift.
As Scripture demonstrates, God’s love for us is undeniable. The question then becomes, do we love God? Do we genuinely love Him? I am confident that we would all say yes but just saying the words is not enough. We must also demonstrate our love by our actions. To love God means a desire to grow our relationship with Him. It means to put Him at the center of our lives and allow nothing to become more important. It means to accept His will and to know that everything that happens is for a greater purpose. Most importantly, it means to love others as God loves us.
Loving one another is one of the greatest examples of how we can show our love for God. In John 13:34, Jesus teaches us: “I give you a new commandment. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you should also love one another.” This teaching not only applies to the people that we know personally, but to everyone that we interact with in our lives. It seems like our society becomes more volatile and moves further away from this teaching with every passing day. The treatment shown toward others in certain situations can be downright disturbing. Immediate examples that come to mind include the interactions we see online and on social media, but it increasingly happens in public as well. While on vacation this summer, my family and I witnessed a customer berating a server at a restaurant because he did not like what he had ordered. He yelled at her for several minutes complaining about his meal and then left without paying. My kids were in disbelief that someone would act that way and a conversation followed about how we would have handled the situation. That server was also taking care of our table, so we tried to show her as much love as possible to counter the negativity. Loving one another can be as simple as a kind word or action. Our treatment of others can have a ripple effect on how they choose to treat the next person they interact with which is why we should take the words of Jesus to heart and love our neighbors by showing compassion in all situations.
The Corporal Works of Mercy which follow Jesus’s teachings provide an excellent guide for how we should treat others. We should approach each situation by contemplating what Jesus would say or do. Better yet, we should imagine that Jesus Himself is standing in front of us before we react. Speaking during a general audience in St. Peter’s Square in 2017, Pope Francis stated, “Showing love to others is not something that we do to shine a light on who or what we are, but to show better who God is, and what he freely gives to us.” Pope Francis is reminding us that the kindness and love that we display toward others needs to be sincere. It should not be for the purpose of making ourselves feel better or showing off. Doing so for these reasons would be counterproductive to the teachings of Jesus. Our acts of compassion must be authentic and when they are, they will display the true love of God to others.
Another way we can show our love for God is to grow our relationship with Him and make time for Him through prayer. With work and family obligations free time can be minimal but making time to connect with the Lord is a top priority for me. Chronicles 16:11 teaches us to seek the Lord and His presence continually. The only way we can grow a relationship with someone and to genuinely love them, is to spend time with them. Otherwise, they are just a general acquaintance. In a previous post about God’s love (link provided below), I mentioned that the prologue of the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us: “At every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength.” We would not think twice about making ourselves available for our loved ones here on Earth, the same should be true for God.
How we approach our relationship with God is important. Prayer and attending Mass, should be activities we look forward to and get excited about. I understand this is not always practical and I have at times approached them with a less than positive attitude due to the events of the day. Those feelings are normal, but it is what we do with those feelings that matters. Do we stay in a bad mood, or do we surrender to God’s love and mercy? I choose the latter and always come away from my time with Him feeling renewed and ready to share His love with others.
Our interactions with God should be less like the situation that my family witnessed in the restaurant, where we complain and then look to Him to fix our problems, and more like my daughter’s reaction after school. It would be amazing if we could approach our relationship with God with the same level of excitement that a child shows at the first sight of their parent. Like our kids after school, we also have someone we love that is waiting for us at the end of a long day. Our relationship with God is that same special bond between a parent and a child that my daughter and I have and just as a parent does, God loves us completely, flaws and all. As we go throughout our day, let us reflect on that fact and ask ourselves, how are we showing our love for God?