What You Want Most

One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matthew 22:35-39

IF SOMEONE WERE to ask your children what you want most for them or from them based on what they hear you say or see you get worked up about, how would they respond? Would your children sense that what is most important to you is that they have a clean room, good grades, and that they live up to their potential?

Or would your children sense that your greatest desire for their lives is grounded in the greatest commandment? Do your actions, words, and attitudes communicate that what will please you most is what will please God most —that your children love God most of all?

Our children probably know that we want them to obey the Ten Commandments —to honor their mom and dad, to be sexually chaste now in anticipation of being faithful one day to a spouse, to tell the truth, and to be content with what they have rather than covetous over what they don’t. But perhaps we haven’t been as clear with them about this all-important affection. Perhaps we haven’t been clear that the reason we take them to church and read the Bible is because we want them to know God in such a way that his beauty and perfection will stir up in them an all-encompassing affection for him.

Lord, I know that my children see what I’m drawn to, what I get excited about, what I think and talk about, what I put effort toward. What I want ________ to see in me is that I love you with all of my heart and that I am not coldhearted or simply going through the motions, but that I have a genuine loving relationship with you. I want ________ to see that I love you with all of my soul, that the deepest part of who I am has a bent toward you. I want ________ to see that I love you with all of my mind —that I think about you more than my favorite team, activity, or meal. Lord, let my love for you in our home be contagious so that ________ might love you with all of her heart, soul, and mind.