When we read the greatest commandment ("You will love the Lord your God will all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength," as quoted by Jesus), we usually tend to put the emphasis on the four "all"s. God deserves the complete dedication of our entire being, the commandment says.
Meditating on this commandment in this way has helped me immensely in my walk with God. But I think we can also gain a lot of insight by focusing on the "your"s.
I am called to love God with my heart, with my mind, with my soul, and with my strength. I don't need someone else's heart, mind, soul, or strength. Though God knows I wish I had them, I don't need someone else's emotional intelligence or expressiveness, or someone else's intellectual capability and fortitude, or someone else's endurance and threshold for pain. I can love God in the way that He wants with what makes me who I am.
(Someone might argue that the "you" in this verse is plural, intended for God's people as a whole, and that I'm letting American individualism creep into my thinking. I think the commandment applies in both the singular and plural sense. I wonder, after all, how the second greatest commandment--"You will love your neighbor as yourself"--would be interpreted in a plural manner.)
I find this thought very comforting. I spend too much of my thinking time wondering how someone I admire would respond to a situation, or word an e-mail, or make a presentation; but I can love God in those situations with my personality & internal construction. I don't need someone else's.
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