I just finished reading James Smith’s work, “You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit.” I reevaluated my life’s actions to shape my spiritual habits. I was reminded of the old saying, “You are what you eat.” If I eat unhealthy foods, I cannot be surprised if I become unhealthy. Similarly, Smith relates our personal habits and desires to our spiritual health.

In John 1:38, Jesus asks, “What are you seeking?” when two disciples heard John the Baptist say, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” From this simple statement, the two disciples followed after Jesus. Jesus is also asking us what we want. But what he is asking is really, what do you love?

The book examines the principle that we are what we love. He says that we are defined morally and spiritually by what we love. Something he said at the beginning of his book is that “You can’t not love.” This came home to me. It is like telling someone not to think blue and expecting that to happen. We all have something we hold above all else.

Love drives us. Or better put, we are driven by love. It becomes our focus. But love of what? This is where we become patrons of secular desires. Whether secular or sacred, Smith calls it our telos.1 Telos (τέλος in Greek) means purpose or goal. Our heart is the center of our being. Our drive to become more like Christ is fueled by love. I was a teacher and school administrator for 35 years. I often had interactions with recalcitrant students who seemed to miss the point of education. Many people interpreted education as filling our students with knowledge. The problem with this was that many students lacked focus or a clear goal for their education. We missed finding out what the students wanted. Once a student knew what they wanted in life, their education became much more important to them. Once they had a telos, they became more driven. We all need love as our center.

To get to our telos, we need direction or a compass. Smith continues with the theme of the heart being our compass. If we love something, we set our telos in that direction. But we, mere humans, get off course quite easily. We are easily distracted by the glitter and gold that surround us in our world. Our heart, our compass, needs to be tuned to keep them functioning in alignment with our goal. Where do we find that realignment? In the shopping mall, in media, on Facebook, or in our daily worship.

I have had the experience of using some of the first GPS devices in the 1990s. I would set my goal and then take off. Then I would hit a detour. The GPS technology was not advanced enough at that time to detect a change in the route. I would make a wrong turn, and the lovely voice on the device said “recalculating.” While this was highly irritating, it was necessary to get me back on the correct path to my destination. Our faith is much like this. If our true north is off, we need a higher power to recalibrate our path.

Where do we get our recalculation for our faith? We need to find it in our scriptures and in our daily worship. We are what we love, after all.