Heart, soul, mind, strength

I have a friend who was the leader of a major church program, and was godly, full of integrity, loving, and well loved by many.

Then she fell into a spiritual faith crisis, with no apparent external causes. I was one of a few people she shared this with and asked for prayer. Finally she took time out of work to spend a few weeks at one of the L'Abri fellowship houses, for prayer and fasting and reading and contemplation. She made up her mind that she was either going to leave L'Abri following God completely or walking the other way. The one thing she would not accept was a condition worthy of being vomited out of Christ's mouth (Revelation 3:15-16).

God has restored my friend's faith and her joy. Now she and I spend Sunday afternoons together reading a good book to each other. I commended her last Sunday for having obeyed a very specific commandment:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30).

I don't think she had quite looked at it before as obedience to a command. She proceeded to say that she used to struggle a bit with the relationship of grace to obedience. But now she was hungry for God's every word as never before, and told me she understands the meaning of the saying that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). His statements, His commands, His questions, His manner of living, they are all her food.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.