Freely Speaking Audio Devotion

Welcome to Freely Speaking, an OHSOFREE devotional ministry where we share our hearts and trust God for transformation.

In today’s devotion, Loving God and Others with All Your Mind, Karen Wardle shares her thoughts on our scripture found in Mark 12:30, where Jesus commands us to:

“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 NIV).

Have you ever been so caught up in your circumstances that you neglected a friend? I have, more than once.

When I was twelve, I met a girl at school, and we instantly became best friends. We did all the things best friends do. One day, we even discovered we were cousins when attending the same family reunion. Though our paths inevitably took us apart, we remained fast friends through high school, college, and early adulthood.

Circumstances then became ugly in our lives. We arranged to meet at a restaurant. She brought her baby daughter and appeared haggard. Her minivan looked as though they had been living out of it. Dinner was a time of catching up, and I felt compelled to pay for the meal. It felt awkward when we parted ways and didn’t correspond until years later. This sounds normal enough, except I felt I missed a significant opportunity. Recently, my friend let me know she had been homeless during that time following her husband’s betrayal. Neither her Christian friends nor the churches she reached out to provided tangible help. This made her bitter, and she fell away from Christ. I was so wrapped up in my trials that I neglected a friend and her desperate cry for help.

Next to Jesus, Job is probably the most famous sufferer in the Bible. He lost children, his livelihood, wealth, and health—his friends whom He reached out to for help neglected to meet his needs. Consequently, Job’s anguish was very great.

Job said, in Job 6:14 (ESV), “He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty.” Think about the magnitude of Job’s statement. If we aren’t thinking, alert, and mindful of the needs of our family, friends, and others ─ the Bible says we are forsaking God Himself.

Jesus’ command in Mark 12:30 is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” It takes conscious thought to see the needs of each individual we know and the needs of people we meet as we go through each day. If I had been thinking, my friend and I might have helped each other through our challenging circumstances, and the outcome surely would have been better. Perhaps my friend would still be following Christ. Perhaps her now-grown daughter would have been raised in Christ and might have missed many pitfalls. Loving God with all my mind means I am always conscientiously alert for potential opportunities to love and help others.

When you think about being mindful of others, what might you improve upon? In what ways can you relate to my experience with my friend?

Thank you for joining us today. If you would like to learn more about OhSoFree Ministries, please visit us at www.ohsofreeministries.com/