Loving God: Is it really this easy?

I had a bass lesson a while back. The previous week, I had been given a progression of a few minor chords and asked to prepare a jazz solo based on the dorian mode. I worked my butt off coming up with something to play. And, since I'm primarily a melodic player, I came up with a really catchy riff to build the solo around that flowed really nicely. When lesson time came, I played the riffs, then started adding and building off of the motive, carefully demonstrating my ability to play on different positions of the neck. I thought that I was doing pretty well when, not too long into the solo, my instructor stopped me and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're trying way too hard!". I was pretty shocked because I honestly don't know another way to play -- practice your butt off until the technical skills are all there and play over progressions until something sticks and develop it. Sounds good, right?

Later on that same night I was sitting in our couples group. A buddy of mine had invited himself (he's the kind of guy who can do that and get away with it), and became pretty involved in the group discussion. He told of the financial and employment challenges that he's been facing and how God's used them to bring about some pretty amazing changes. Like me, he likes to dig into things while intellectually breaking them apart -- for both of us, it's how we can make sense of things. In our small group, he told us how he's been discovering a new faith in God, that following Christ doesn't have to be a difficult intellectual process. He said that it all came down to doing one very basic thing: loving God. That's it, nothing else. If you simply love God, everything else will naturally flow, automatically putting everything else in life into its proper place. In short, he said that I'm trying to hard.

Well darn. Can it really be that simple? Have I been spending my time pouring over Bible commentaries and position peices looking for something that's been right under my nose? I mean, how do you just love God anyway? My brain takes me right back to searching through Scripture to find out the answer, but that seems like I'd be spinning my wheels in the same direction again.

So how do I love God? Well, if I think of how I love my wife, I do things like make her coffee, start her car in the morning to warm it up, take things that are heavy to and from the car, things like that. I also spend time with her, talking and listening. If I was only to do things for her without the communication, I'm guessing that our relationship would get pretty dry in not too long. Conversely, if I was merely to spend time with her without doing things that demonstrate my love for her, I'd be taking advantage of her, turning it into a one way relationship. Spending time with her reminds me of why I'm doing things for her and doing things for her demonstrates my feelings. I'm guessing that it's the same with God -- spend time with Him and perform acts of service, for and because of Him. It doesn't really seem to me that one without the other would work for too long.

So this is my new focus in life -- focus on the basics and try to live a mentally more simple life. I may do a follow up in a bit to gauge my progress. Peace out!