First Love

Can we keep our early passion?

image by ReGenesis

The early days of a romance possess a quality that possesses us. We stay up all night, talking. Listening, genuinely. We think of nothing else. We’d do anything for them. But gradually, we get to know them. We get comfortable. We settle in. Following Jesus can follow that example. But should it? Can we escape that all-too-common trap?

I rested in you in childhood days

you formed the landscape of my life

then college questions challenged me

            I drifted and searched,

unsatisfied with who I was

                        unable to change

Returning

            you transformed me

                        breaking the back of my self-love

            and I exulted in your power and love and grace

Later

            I walked through mountain meadows

                        no hint of a human touch

            and rejoiced in your majesty and creativity and grace

I saw you move

            healing cancer

            bringing a nimbus cloud of comfort to a pregnant mother

            raising a wooden beam to form a cross

                        that brought that mother’s brother to you

            and I appreciated your touch and comfort and grace

You woke me early

with a song proclaiming

            you paint the morning sky with miracles in mind

I saw the paint and waited all day for the miracles

the sunrise foreshadowed the miracle of a week later

and I said thanks for your beauty and concern and grace

But why

            did I earlier feel so blown away to see you act

            and now see it as the normal landscape of my life?

Blow me away

            again

may I never see your acts

            as anything less than miracles

may I never become jaded

            in who you are

That poem expressed a grief of mine, that settling in. The newness of knowing him faded. I suspect a lot of us feel that. Frankly, the spiritual life can no more maintain the emotional high than can the romantic one. The church in Ephesus experienced that, “I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:4-5).

The joy, the intimacy, the freshness of continuing to grow closer and learn, should remain present, but how? We do what we did back then. We revisit the early days, what made it so good. And we do those. Again. We take quiet walks at the beach or the woods, or on the motorcycle. We focus on him. We listen raptly in prayer, or as we read his words on paper. We sacrifice, feeling it’s a privilege to do so for the one we love. We brag about him, his love, his grace, his truth.

Kick Starting the Application

If you’ve followed Jesus for some time, have you seen this tendency in yourself? What allowed the freshness to grow stale? In the early days, what best brought the passion for you? When did that wane? How can you resurrect it? Think back on just one of the patterns of your early days with Jesus, and deliberately work that into your daily routines. Then, after a week, evaluate how that worked.