A Poem: Do I Love You?

My husband and I are fond of movies. If some couples take pleasure in running together, Jason and I relish our movie time together. One of our favorite genres to watch is crime and mystery. We like following the process of how mysteries are solved and how suspects are proven guilty or not guilty.

In a crime, before a suspect is convicted guilty, three things have to be present: means, motive, and opportunity. About a month ago, Jason preached a concept of living out the teachings of Jesus parallel to carrying out a crime. He asked, “If Christianity was illegal in Thailand, would there be enough evidence in our lives to convict us guilty of following Jesus?” He went on unpacking that question suggesting the means, the motive, and the opportunity before we can be found guilty of being Jesus’ followers.

He proposed in his message that our means for serving should be exercising our spiritual gifts. Our motive should be love. Our opportunity should be the freedom we have in Christ.

I always get to hear bits and pieces of his messages before he delivers them on Sundays. (I guess that’s the bonus of being the preacher’s wife. Haha!) I am usually already mulling over what he has shared with me before his actual sermon. This message was no different; but after hearing the totality of it, everything came together for me with a greater impact than I had first felt about it.

I want to share with you the poem I wrote while contemplating on what God showed me through Jason’s message. The poem is an honest look at my own heart and my own walk with the Lord as I examined my motive for doing what I do.

“Do I Love You?”

When I offer you drink for Your thirst
and bread to eat for Your hunger,
do I do it because I love you?
Or because I am so accustomed
to how good it feels when I give?

When I run to your aid
and put my comforts aside for you,
do I do it because I love you?
Or because I unknowingly serve myself
and want people to see I am to be praised?

I examine my heart and pore over it.
I ask, “What is your motive?”
I probe deeper within and question myself.
I ask, “What is your motive?”
Is it love, or is it something else?

And though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor,
and though I give my body
to be burned,
but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Do I love you?
I pray to God that I do.
I pray to God that in all I do
I do because I love you
As He loves you.

Do I love you?
I pray to God that I do.
I pray to Him that He consume all of me,
cause me to embrace you with His love,
clothe me with His humility.

Jesus is the most important Person in my life. I do not want to disappoint Him, but I do. A lot. When I wrote this poem, I was thinking of Him and how I must have grieved Him for doing “selfless” deeds out of selfish motives instead of love. It broke my heart knowing that I broke His.

With my spiritual eyes truly opened to how easy and quick it is for me to cater my flesh whether intentionally or not, my prayer now is that I daily seek out for the Holy Spirit to supernaturally enable me to love people as He loves them, to serve them because I love them and because Jesus loves them, and to not be deceived into serving my own.

I pray to God that I be consistently vigilant of my heart’s condition and let love be my only motive for doing what I do.

August 12, 2014
2:03 p.m.
Krabi, Thailand

© 2014 Kezia Lewis. All Rights Reserved.