Do you love God?

I started the book Stepping Heavenward. I have read it before, but it is one of those books you keep on the shelf and pull out every couple of years and compare yourself to the character in it.
I wanted share a section of it that I read tonight. Enjoy!


July 19.-I went to the meeting, and so did Amelia. A great many young
people were there and a few children. Dr. Cabot went about from seat
to seat speaking to each one separately. When he came to us I
expected he would say something about the way in which I had been
brought up, and reproach me for not profiting more by the
instructions and example I had at home. Instead of that he said, in a
cheerful voice,

"Well, my dear, I cannot see into your heart and positively tell
whether there is love to God there or not. But I suppose you have
come here to-day in order to let me help you to find out?"

I said, "Yes"; that was all I could get out.

"Let me see, then," he went on. "Do you love your mother?"

I said "Yes," once more.

"But prove to me that you do. How do you know it?"

I tried to think. Then I said,

"I feel that I love her. I love to love her, I like to be with her. I
like to hear people praise her. And I try--sometimes at least--to do
things to please her. But I don't try half as hard as I ought, and I
do and say a great many things to displease her." ...


..."In the first place, then, you feel that you love your mother? But
you never feel that you love your God and Savior?"

"I often try, and try, but I never do," I said.

"Love won't be forced," he said, quickly.

"Then what shall I do?"

"In the second place, you like to be with your mother. But you never
like to be with the Friend who loves you so much better than she
does?"

"I don't know, I never was with Him. Sometimes I think that when Mary
sat at His feet and heard Him talk, she must have been very happy."

"We come to the third test, then. You like to hear people praise your
mother. And have you ever rejoiced to hear the Lord magnified?"

I shook my head sorrowfully enough.

"Let us then try the last test. You know you love your mother because
you try to do things to please her. That is to do what you know she
wishes you to do? Very well. Have you never tried to do anything God
wishes you to do?" "Oh yes; often. But not so often as I ought."

"Of course not. No one does that. But come now, why do you try to do
what you think will please Him? Because it is easy? Because you like
to do what He likes rather than what you like yourself?"

I tried to think, and got puzzled.

"Never mind," said Dr. Cabot, " I have come now to the point I was
aiming at. You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by
examining your feelings towards Him. They are indefinite and they
fluctuate. But just as far as you obey Him, just so far, depend upon
it, you love Him. It is not natural to us sinful, ungrateful human
beings to prefer His pleasure to our own, or to follow His way
instead of our own way, and nothing, nothing but love to Him can or
does make us obedient to Him."

"Couldn't we obey Him from fear ?"Amelia now asked. She had been
listening all this time in silence.

"Yes; and so you might obey your mother from fear, but only for a
season. If you had no real love for her you would gradually cease to
dread her displeasure, whereas it is in the very nature of love to
grow stronger and more influential every hour."

"You mean, then, that if we want to know whether we love God, we must
find out whether we are obeying Him?" Amelia asked.

"I mean exactly that. 'He that keepeth my commandments he it is that
loveth me.'