If you are one of the millions whose lives have been impacted by Smartphones and Ipads you will know that there seems to be an app for everything. In case you are not one of those millions, app is short for applications that may be downloaded to your phone or your Ipad to do all sorts of things.

There are apps that enable you to control the lights in your house. There are apps to help you lose weight by keeping track of your calories. There are apps to notify you when you have overdrawn your checking account. There are apps to wake you up and there are apps to put you to sleep.

I wondered if there is an app for God? In visiting the App Store I found that there are a number of God apps available. There is a “Pocket God” and a “Doodle God” and there are “God Tools,” and a number of other God apps, some of which offer a chance to play God in a game. Others are related to prayer and the Bible. Some are free and others are not, but none are the real thing.

I didn’t find a God app that enabled you to love more compassionately, or one that enabled you to relieve human suffering.

There are many substitutes for God; money, power, sex, to mention a few. And, there are apps that let you play God by equating God with power. With one of these apps, being God means you can make others do your liking. For instance you can zap the driver of a car that cuts you off and cause all his tires to blow out.

But take heart, because there is a God app. You don’t need to go to the App Store, it does not need to be downloaded and it is absolutely free.

The God app is Love.

St. Paul says it all in his letter to the Church at Corinth: “If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Cor 13:1-3 “

In case you wonder just what he means by love he tells us:

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.1 Cor 13:4-8

Try the God app that is Love.

If you want know how you are doing try taking Paul’s passage and substituting your name for the word love.