The first thing that pops into my head is an apple because it’s the fruit I eat most often. I wonder if you thought about an apple too, or some other tree fruit like an orange? Or did you think about a tropical fruit like a banana? Or perhaps a vine fruit like grapes? Or even a “fruit vegetable” like a tomato?
The first thing that pops into my head is a general mush-gushy concept. I wonder if you thought about that too? Or did you think about a loving relationship? Or a loving action? Or about God’s love for us? Or something else?
We know that love is bigger than the first thing that pops into our heads. The Bible talks about four different ways to love God: with your heart, soul, mind, and strength. For a long time when I heard this, or read this, I glossed over the words “heart, soul, mind, & strength” and sort of lumped them together. I interpreted them in a general sort of way, more like “Love God with every fiber of your being,” or “Be totally devoted to God,” rather than as individual ways, words, or aspects of love.
But now I think that heart, soul, mind, and strength are important distinctions. Loving with a patient heart is different from loving with a patient soul, patient mind, or patient strength. Knowing about one and practicing it a lot doesn’t give you automatic knowledge of the rest, and they’re ALL really important.
Not only that, let’s not forget that God IS love. So these are also four different ways to know ABOUT God. Four different kinds of things to LEARN about God. And as I was saying in my last post, Four of a Kind, four ways to SERVE OTHERS.
We can specialize in one, but we need to know a little about the others as well if we want to know God better. And I don’t know about you, but that is MY goal. If you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of obsessed with it.
So if in answer to my first question I say, “apple,” and you say, “tomato.” I think I want to get to know you better.
I think that some people would think, "I want to throw a tomato at you," if you say tomato for your answer. "What do you have some sort of 'fruit vegitable' agenda? Do you think you are cute? I don't think you are cute. I think it is obscene to say 'tomato' for your answer."
ReplyDeleteWhat's a pumpkin?
A pumpkin is a fruit-vegetable and a jack-o-lantern is an obscene pumpkin. LOL
ReplyDeleteIt's hard for me to understand but some people do seem to get bent out of shape about tomato-like answers.
Did you know that the first jack-o-lanterns were made out of turnips, mangelwurzels, and swedes or rutabagas? Now that's obscene!
ReplyDeleteTechnically, a "fruit" is what is produced when a plant blossoms. So that would also include cucumbers, squash, artichokes, eggplants . . . How about a fruit salad? With whipped cream?:)
ReplyDeleteI love it when I find out I think like one of my sisters. So, in my dry way, like Leaven, my first thought was, "Well, a fruit is the product of the ovum (flower) of a plant. So a tomato is legitimately a fruit. But I don't think you, Querci, were really referring to fruits and vegetables. When you said "love", I thought of my family. And that makes sense because a safe, trusting, loving family is a great place to experience, practice, and understand the four aspects of love.
ReplyDelete