Rekindling Love

Jesus tells the church in Ephesus, “I hold this against you, you have forsaken your first love.” This weekend is our church retreat for men. In looking over the itinerary I see we are covering basics, evangelism, discipleship and confession. I got to thinking about my own life and the tenets of faith. I see so much that I do that is Christ maturing me. I pray differently now than before. I trust God to hear my prayer whereas as a young believer so often I wondered if He listened or heard.

The flip side is that it’s easy to lose sight of the early astonishment of it all. Early on I feared God differently. Now it is more as father than as scary big-as-the-universe God. There is a fine line there someplace. True I can rest in my heavenly dad’s love for me. Still it is good to tremble at the fullness of all that He is.

That inkling of thought for me, that nudge from the Spirit, is to rekindle those first amazing understandings of God. To pray to Him as He is, to surrender to Him as He deserves, to worship in awe at the fullness of Him who holds all things together by His hand. In that balance between trembling awe and childlike comfort lies the secret of staying in love with God.