Central to my understanding of what it means to live in relationship to God and to understand ourselves are the scriptures Jesus quoted in Matthew 22:37-40 as the center points which sum up the heart of the story of God and humanity: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This call to love God with the focus of our being and lives is a reflection of the loving character of God revealed in Jesus, as Paul describes in his prayer for the Christians in Ephesus and everywhere: “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:18-19)