I sometimes wake in the night, and if I can’t get back to sleep, I get up to pray. It’s become a habit I’ve 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 to 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?
5 replies on “God’s love language”
Time with God is so crucial. The Bishop of Baghdad Andrew White said in an interview that, he wont hire anyone who cannot hear the voice of God in two minutes or less. That is due to the nature of violence that is dealt with in Baghdad. In order to hear God’s voice (I am not trying to get into theological debates people) one must become intimate and sensitive to God. We are wired for intimacy with God, but speaking for myself, my infant daughter has begun to show me when I spend too much time on my devices and not enough with her! Same goes for my time spent with God. When I forego visits with the Almighty, I miss out.
I totally agree. It’s sad that the busyness of life so often crowds out what is important. Check out this youtube video http://youtu.be/Z7dLU6fk9QY. I love the parallels of your infant daughter.
I appreciate what Andrew White said too. That is crucial in his world–and in ours.
Yes I liked what you said in your post and I liked what Bob said in his comment..there is no doubt that spending time with our loving father must help us to be better humans in dealing with each other.
and Physical Touch, is where we reach out and touch the people around us in our everyday walking around life – in Jesus’ name. A smile, a sandwich, kind words, help to lift or garden.
Yes!