While prayer is a central way that we might focus on loving God, another might be receiving God’s gift of Scripture as a means of loving God. If you give a gift to someone you love, seeing them appreciate and make use of that gift brings you pleasure. Especially if you notice that in using that gift they are directing their attention on you in a loving way. Might it be the same for God who has provided us the gift of Scripture.
Again I suggest that you take short periods of time at least as a way to begin. I’ve heard of ancient rabbis spending a whole day contemplating a single word of Scripture but I’m not sure that is the way to begin. Determine to take a half-hour break in which you will spend time allowing Scripture to speak to you about the attributes of God.
You might want to use a concordance to identify some adjectives that praise God. Gather up several of them and then spend some time exploring the nature of God through these adjectives. That might come in the form of a word study or it might be in the form of contemplation around one or two of these adjectives. Whatever your approach, the purpose is to focus your attention on the wonder of God.
The time limit of one-half hour might even serve the advantage of intriguing you so that you want to set aside another half-hour at another time to continue the experience. Discipline yourself to avoid thinking of how useful your work might be for a sermon, a class, etc. This is time to purely place yourself in the presence of God in a loving way.
