Hey,

I marvel sometimes at how People of God in the Old Testament lived. The weren't filled with the Holy Spirit, at least not the way we are. They didn't have Jesus as an living example. We sometimes comment about how often they blew it, but I don't think we do much better.

One thing that helped them was their history. They emphasized again and again remembering how God had delivered them. How many times does God remind them that he brought them out of Egypt? Do we have a history like that? Of course, God has seen us through many things, but do we work on remembering?Tonite, in our college group we are going to make our personal histories or how God has worked in our lives.

Remember that we are tracking spiritual things, not things of this world. The things this world recognizes are not as spiritually significant as some things we might miss. A great disaster to this world could be a spiritual lesson learned; a highlight to us.

List as many as you can think of for each of the following categories:

People who have affected your spiritual life.
Times when things went well spiritually.
Created things that bless you.
Things that God has used to get your attention.
Things that God rescued you from.

This gives you a starting place of a list of things to remind you that God has worked in your life. It is useful to remind you that God will continue to do so.

The church often tells us to love God. I have found that this can be frustrating, especially it seems for younger people, trying to feel a familiar "love emotion" for an invisible God. It sounds like we should be feeling like gazing into his eyes, feeling warm and fuzzy. This doesn't go too well with the knowledge of an awesome God who is Father but also King and Judge.
I looked up occurences of "love God" and found that there are very few. Most are the commandment and quotes of the commandment ...

Mark 12:29"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." 32"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." 34When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

So we are clearly to love God. But the language used is different than the many ways God's love for us is expressed. "Our heats, soul, mind and streangth" basically means in everything that we do. Notice that Jesus includes the commandment to love our neighbor. The next two passages tie loving God to loving each other in much stronger language ...

1John 4:10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

John 21:15When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?"
"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."

This reminds me of someone trying to "court" a widow (or widower) who has children. The first step would be to love her (or his) children. God has many children and our way to an intimate relationship with Him is to love his children. And if I am loving you and you are loving me, and each other: we are all taken care of. His love is made complete.
I suggest that the way to love God, although it is helped by worship, prayer, and study; is most effectively through loving others. It is hard, certainly. People are often unlovely. But how to do it is obvious. There are often visible results. Its tangible. It actively persues the happiness of others, instead of a good feeling for ourselves. And it furthers God's kingdom.