I remember during one of my first Theology classes; coming across the quote by Augustine that I have chosen for the title of this post. I was instantly intrigued by the apparent simplicity of the statement and as a new Christian whether or not it was a statement that I could consider as true. Six years later as I finish up my undergrad work, I am reminded again at just how true it really is. While on the surface it appears to be a simple quote that very well may have just been said in passing, once meditated on and dissected really has no simplicity to it much like the Japanese form of poetry Haiku which is a poem composed of only three lines.
The quote by Augustine “love God and do what you want” always seems to stir the pot when I bring it up in classes. Many people react to the statement without really thinking about it at all and I get the impression that they think of the statement as at best a paradox or worse an oxymoron. After all Christ said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15, 21, 23, 24). It reminds me that a couple of weeks ago my wife and I went out on our weekly date on a Saturday morning for breakfast; as we were paying for our meal the clerk commented on my wife’s t-shirt (it said that simply that Jesus is not religion). He asked what she meant or something to the effect of if Jesus isn’t a religion then what is He? She responded with He is a relationship, she said that religion is about a bunch of rules that say don’t do this and don’t do that. The clerk then asked, “what about the ten commandments those are rules aren’t they?” I replied to him that some would see them as that but we didn’t, not any more. They were more like boundaries. I asked him if he was married or had a girlfriend; he said he had a girlfriend. So I then asked him if you knew there were certain things that didn’t make her happy when you did them would you do them, like see other women or lie to her things like that. He said no. Well, those are her relationship boundaries (the ethical implications aside, the conversation wasn’t that deep). The ten commandments are really relationship boundaries for our heavenly Father to let us know how He liked to be treated obviously. They are more than that but that was not the subject of our conversation, relationship was. It is also the point of Augustine’s quote; think about it: “love God and do what you want.” Just think about it for a minute. If I were to take the quote and apply it to my relationship with my wife it may be easier to break it down. If I love Terri, what ever I want to do I do not want to hurt her; so I would never put any other girl before her. I would never lie to her or about her. I would never want to harm her on any level so I would want to respect, even cherish her boundaries for relationship. In fact, I would want to know everything I could about her and her boundaries. It is the same way with our heavenly Father, the same and it is different. It’s the same way in that if I love my heavenly Father I want to know everything about Him and what His boundaries for relationship are. The really cool thing is He wrote it all down for me and He made it interesting for me to read with examples both good and bad; along with plots, subplots, intrigue, suspense, and drama–real stories about other people who did and did not respect his boundaries. This was Augustine’s point: if you truly really love God, you will want to and even feel a need to find out everything about Him–find out what hurts Him; what makes Him feel joy, sorrow, and all the other emotions that He feels and created us to feel also. And when you know Him intimately and are in intimate relationship with Him you can do whatever you want to do because what you want to do would never be anything that would be wrong to do. So…Love God…. and do what you want.
The quote by Augustine “love God and do what you want” always seems to stir the pot when I bring it up in classes. Many people react to the statement without really thinking about it at all and I get the impression that they think of the statement as at best a paradox or worse an oxymoron. After all Christ said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15, 21, 23, 24). It reminds me that a couple of weeks ago my wife and I went out on our weekly date on a Saturday morning for breakfast; as we were paying for our meal the clerk commented on my wife’s t-shirt (it said that simply that Jesus is not religion). He asked what she meant or something to the effect of if Jesus isn’t a religion then what is He? She responded with He is a relationship, she said that religion is about a bunch of rules that say don’t do this and don’t do that. The clerk then asked, “what about the ten commandments those are rules aren’t they?” I replied to him that some would see them as that but we didn’t, not any more. They were more like boundaries. I asked him if he was married or had a girlfriend; he said he had a girlfriend. So I then asked him if you knew there were certain things that didn’t make her happy when you did them would you do them, like see other women or lie to her things like that. He said no. Well, those are her relationship boundaries (the ethical implications aside, the conversation wasn’t that deep). The ten commandments are really relationship boundaries for our heavenly Father to let us know how He liked to be treated obviously. They are more than that but that was not the subject of our conversation, relationship was. It is also the point of Augustine’s quote; think about it: “love God and do what you want.” Just think about it for a minute. If I were to take the quote and apply it to my relationship with my wife it may be easier to break it down. If I love Terri, what ever I want to do I do not want to hurt her; so I would never put any other girl before her. I would never lie to her or about her. I would never want to harm her on any level so I would want to respect, even cherish her boundaries for relationship. In fact, I would want to know everything I could about her and her boundaries. It is the same way with our heavenly Father, the same and it is different. It’s the same way in that if I love my heavenly Father I want to know everything about Him and what His boundaries for relationship are. The really cool thing is He wrote it all down for me and He made it interesting for me to read with examples both good and bad; along with plots, subplots, intrigue, suspense, and drama–real stories about other people who did and did not respect his boundaries. This was Augustine’s point: if you truly really love God, you will want to and even feel a need to find out everything about Him–find out what hurts Him; what makes Him feel joy, sorrow, and all the other emotions that He feels and created us to feel also. And when you know Him intimately and are in intimate relationship with Him you can do whatever you want to do because what you want to do would never be anything that would be wrong to do. So…Love God…. and do what you want.
