"love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself"

Now that I feel like I have come to some sort of peace on the "emotion" question in regards to its place in my life and faith, I feel as if I am able to move forward. I feel ready to fight the battle for my heart again, to strive to honor God with every part of who I am - my emotions, my actions, and my intellect. This is truly the battle for me - allowing every part of me to be caught up in who God is. I feel as if the major temptation for me the past months has been to allow my faith to become something entirely intellectual and practical. To form a theology and make that the basis of why I call myself a Christian. To do good deeds to seal the deal. However, I don't think that is possible. There needs to be a passion behind it, a relationship with God. And a relationship is about emotion, I think. Yes, it's about commitment. But I think that includes emotional commitment. I think about someone I love. I get excited to see someone I love. I long for someone I love. My day is not okay without the presence of the one I love.

I MUST strive to give all my energy to loving God. Because out of that love springs all the rest. I must not lose sight of that fact. I must not allow myself to fall into the trap of thinking I can serve God without actively loving him with all of my HEART.