How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

As I contemplated my own ability to love this morning, this poem entered my thoughts.  As I read it I asked myself if E.B.B. was a Christian, so I searched for an answer.  According to several sources, she was a more than avid Christian and very outspoken regarding her faith.  My next question was: for whom did she write this particular poem, Jesus or the man she loved?  As I read of her marriage in 1845 and that the poem was written the same year, I came to the conclusion that it could have been for either or for both and it really doesn't matter.  The poem speaks of the passion of childhood's faith and that is enough to make me realize she was trying to get across a love so deep that it can only come from God Himself.

I then must ask myself the question, how deeply do I love those around me?  I want to love them with the passion that envelopes this poem, but I realize I fall very short.  While I love enough that I would give up this life in general for them, do I love them enough to give up my every day life for them?  I consider it a rather easy thing to die for those I love.  I would simply pass from this life to life in heaven.  Physical death seems almost admirable when it takes place in the saving of another life.  But which should truly be more admirable, physical death, or dying to self in order to see many souls given life eternal? 

Because of these thoughts running amok in my mind, I once again realized that a change was being made in me.  God has been calling me gently to go deeper into prayer.  I shared before how He has inundated me with studies and sermons on the topic, but never "shoves my face in it."  Sometimes I wish He would so I could get where He wants me to be faster, but He knows my stubbornness and how easily pride besets me, so He goes at the pace I need to prevent me from falling. 

I have been praying for wisdom for many years.  God promises that He will grant wisdom if we ask, but the very definition of wisdom is knowledge mixed with His love. 
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.  I Corinthians 13:1-3 (ASV)

So as of this morning I have a new cry to my prayer: Fill me with Your love for all people of all nations, of all situations in life, even the ones that make me feel uncomfortable or scared.  May I love so deeply that I am willing to lay aside a portion of my life each day to lift them in prayer, putting their needs before my wants and comfort.  You did this for me.  I want to express my gratitude by allowing You to love through me in the same manner.  Grant me a generous heart that gives unsparingly, a welcoming heart that invites others to know You and to know You fully, a passionate heart that places Your desires for my life above all else.  Help me to love as You have loved me.  May I love with childlike faith and the passion of youth.  May I love more deeply with each passing day.