“The greatest commandment is to love God, so the greatest sin is to fail to love him. Right?”

“Or to blaspheme him, perhaps. But you are correct. Failing to love God is a mortal sin. Do you believe in God?”

“Yes. I do believe in him, but I’m afraid I’ve stopped loving him.”

“And to your understanding, what is the cause of this loss of love?”

She hesitated but then plowed forward. “I have cancer. It’s bad. I’m dying. Even though I want to believe God will heal me, I find myself doubting that he will. My love feels like only a dry husk of what it used to be. It’s hard to put into words.”

“Sometimes belief and unbelief can both be fruit that hang from the same vine. When a man came to Jesus to have him cast a demon out of his son and Jesus told him that all things are possible if only you will believe, the man cried out, ‘I do believe, help my unbelief!’ So in this instance, the man held both belief and unbelief in Jesus in his heart at the same time, perhaps even to equal degrees.”

Christie knew the story but had never quite looked at it like that. “Are you saying that doubt isn’t wrong?”

“Sometimes doubt is simply a stepping-stone on the journey toward a deeper faith. You don’t need to understand God to love him. In fact, if you make understanding him a prerequisite for loving him, you’ll always be disappointed.”

“How can I fall in love with God again?”

“Through obedience, my child.”

“Obedience?”

“First John, five, verse three: ‘This is what loving God is—keeping his commandments.’ Have you heard that verse before?”

“Yes.” She’d memorized it many years before but in a different translation. She knew that John never separated obedience from love, but still, this idea of obedience as a way of expressing love for God was a tough one to grasp. “Father, our church teaches grace—God’s undeserved love for us—and salvation through faith rather than works.”

“Are you married?”

“Yes.”

“And you love your husband?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You cannot show your husband how much you love him by committing adultery. And so it is with God. We cannot express our love and devotion to him by running after other lovers.”

“Idols.”

“Yes. Or anything that we place between ourselves and the Lord Jesus Christ. Even demons believe in God, but they do not love him. They tremble. Love must lie at the heart of any person’s relationship with God or that relationship means nothing, and the only way to show love to God is through obedience. Even in Protestant circles, faith is not recognized as enough. ‘And though I have all the faith necessary to move mountains—if I am without love, I am nothing.’”

“First Corinthians thirteen.”