Loving God With All of Me: Integrating as a Practice

As I read the articles by our TeachBeyond friends on “loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength,” I remembered some experiences from teaching seminary students. Some feared starting seminary, thinking they would be in a ‘cemetery’ where their souls would shrivel and die. Others felt that theological study had no practical effect or purpose. How thankful I am for a student who challenged this view: “I cannot think of anything more practical than thinking about God and what this means for how we live.” May his tribe increase! I remember when a student told me he did not need to develop skills to prepare a sermon. He would simply wait and pray on Saturday night until an idea would come to him just in time for Sunday morning. Oh, my.

These experiences reflect how we often disconnect heart, soul, mind and strength from each other, focusing on one at the expense of the others. This is not good pedagogical practice. More importantly, it is not Scriptural. The greatest command in Scripture, to love God with our heart, mind, soul and strength, is rooted in an understanding of personhood that is wholistic (Deuteronomy 6:4-7; Matt. 22:34-40; Luke 10:25-37).[1] Hearts, minds, souls and bodies are not separate parts of our humanity with separate operating procedures.  God creates us as persons who have bodies, minds, souls, and heart, all which make us “us” as persons created in God’s image. God has integrated them in creation; sin has “dis-integrated” them; and the process of Christian formation involves re-integrating them as we grow in wholeness and holiness.[2]

Susan, Katherine, Ednardo and Dayne wrote separate articles for OnPractice. However, we already see integration of heart, soul, mind and strength in what they wrote:  

• Susan on heart: “Oh, how precious it is when someone gets you.”

• Katherine on soul: “A message…. has been ringing in my soul again….and that is Love God!”

• Ednardo on mind: “Since those Bible college days, I cannot imagine loving God with all my mind without considering my whole existence.”

• Dayne on strength: “When we commit to loving God with all our strength, even in our tiredness, it impacts how we interact with our students. Our classrooms become spaces where God’s love and grace are tangible, not just through our words but through our actions and attitudes.”
  

Might I suggest that in transformational education, we focus on integration by actually integrating heart, soul, mind and strength in our own lives, practices, and teaching. In other words, integration is something we do by… actually integrating! We need to be willing to do this work in our own lives if we want to help students do it in theirs.   

A resource that has helped me in integrating heart, soul, mind and strength is Richard Foster’s book, The Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth.[3] Foster walks us through spiritual disciplines which he organizes under inward, outward, and upward movements of the Holy Spirit. We see the deep interconnections between study and prayer; how service becomes a form of worship; and why simplicity helps us regain strength and perspective. You will see other integrative and integrating connections between heart, soul, mind and strength as you read. And perhaps this will help us to see the deep, connective tissues between who we are, how we relate to students, what we learn, how we teach, and why we “do” transformational education as we “do” the integrating work of loving God with our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and loving others.

In Jesus’ great command we are to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength. This means that “all of me” is learning to love God as the Holy Spirit is “re-integrating” our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths, or “all of us” into whole and holy lives in the image of Christ.

Wyndy Corbin Reuschling
Wyndy is the Director of Global Higher Education Services and has been involved with TeachBeyond since 2013, along with her husband, Mike. She is a retired professor of Theology and Ethics from Ashland Theological Seminary and has taught and served in higher education contexts since 1996. Wyndy and Mike live in northeast Ohio near Cleveland.