katHave you ever held on to something you know is bad for you but kept going back to it?
I’m not sure why we human beings do that.
I think it comes from mistrust and a deep hope that if you hold on to said bad thing it might become a good thing.
These last weeks I’ve been spending a lot of time reading books, articles, and listening to podcasts that talk about the psychology of human beings: why we struggle to break bad habits, why we struggle to create new ones, why we cling to things that don’t serve us, how people can develop terminal illnesses by the negative effects of mere stress, and how they can be healed by the simple power of their thoughts.
This week I felt myself falling in love with God again, and yes today is the first day of Autumn so please ignore the pun. I really had no idea that Autumn begins today. I just love fall!
In the spirit of fall and coziness, I read a cute rom-com titled ‘Meet Me In the Margins’ and found myself falling deep into the pages of this book, staying up late at night to read it, especially towards the end with an almost uncontrollable urge. If you’ve read this book you’ll understand.
I loved this book because Will is just such a sacrificial, hard working person and Savannah was so relatable. I realized in a lot of ways, Will, Savannah’s love interest, is like God: authoritative, always working for the greater good of things, disciplined, at times he rebukes but it’s for a good reason deep down, a being of action, yet loving, and sincere. Through reading this book, I realized many things about faith. I was delighted to find out in the acknowledgments that it was written by a Christian woman, which made sense. It was such a wholesome, light-hearted, yet touching read.
After reading this book, however, I found myself going down a rabbit hole on the internet searching for the next rom-com I could read. After finding about 10 books through the series of a few days, and adding all of their previews to my Kindle app I realized I had a problem. I was prioritizing reading these rom-coms over God. Instead of falling in love with Him, I was searching for books to live vicariously through so that I could experience romance through the stories of these characters/couples.
It took a few days for me to realize that, silly me. It was incredibly embarrassing to admit but I have to keep it real with you all because I want you to know I’m human. I’m not a perfect Jesus freak, but every day I’m on a journey to improve.
So what did I realize from this whole ordeal?
It was quite insane but the Sunday message this week at my church was titled, “Learn from Me, Jesus: 1. There are no lies in love. 2.) Find the First Love.” The first couple of days this week I felt the fire of love reignited in my heart, but midweek I started feeling a little distant from God and it was hard to connect and feel His love. Obviously, the problem was not God. It’s never God; it’s always man. The problem, I knew, was me. So I wondered why have I lost my first love for God. It’s not something that happens overnight but over time.
I realized that when we go through difficulties, like I did with my grandma this year (among other hardships) it’s easy to lose the love you had for God at first. When you start feeling unfavored, or like Job in the Bible, it’s easy to lose a little faith. When you lose faith you lose trust in the future and in God’s promises. When we go through hardships, we forget all the good things God did for us in the past- those exact instances and memories that brought us to confess on our knees, “Jesus, I believe in you. I will follow you.”
So when we go through difficulties what’s the first thing we do? As human beings, it’s common to go back to our bad habits than to first seek God (even if you’re a pretty fervent believer, don’t lie, we all have our moments). It’s easy to go back to the ice cream, to seek comfort in social media, friends, drugs, etc. We go back to our idols and our addictions.
What are idols? K-pop idols? Well, they could become idols, BUT basically, an idol is anyone we idolize and worship over God. God’s no. 1 commandment to human beings in the Bible is the following, “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Next time I can talk more deeply about idol worshiping and why it’s such a hindrance to our relationship with God. For now, I will talk about it in a less detailed way (trust me, to teach you all about idol worshipping would be another blog in itself).
Anyway, everyone has an addiction, whether we realize it or not. When we go through hard times we go back to it. So how do you break from it? How do you stop going in cycles? You find your first love again. Everyone’s first love is God. Just read the following scripture “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”
1 John 4:7 NIV
Or read, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”
1 John 4:16 NIV
When we lose the love of God we start feeling empty. We feel a void in our heart and so we try to fill it with physical things, instead of God’s eternal love.
When you lose love you stop trusting God and try to take matters into your own hands. Instead of patiently waiting for God’s blessings and God’s deliverance, understanding that sometimes we will go through hard times, we try to take control of our lives. In this age of “law of attraction” and “manifestation” it’s so easy to rely on your own strength and believe you can resolve the issues in your life on your own. Sure you can to a certain extent, but until you give your heart to Jesus you will continue finding yourself in the same cycles time after time.
If only we trusted God and realized that in life, there are seasons for everything- some longer than others- I think that would save us from a lot of hardship. Instead, we are like the Israelites who were literally delivered from slavery in Egypt and complained against the one sent by God, Moses. Their complaining caused them to stay stuck in their suffering (a.k.a the Desert of Zin) out of their own wrong actions.
When we fail to wait on God’s perfect timing and try to find loopholes to fulfill our physical desires, thinking out of our own ignorance, “Oh, surely I’m not sinning. God’s still no. 1., etc.,” then we find ourselves as fools.
There are no lies in love. We can’t deceive Jesus. He knows our every thought and every feeling in our hearts.
So today I urge you to ask yourself have I lost your first love? What first promises, actions, or convictions have you lost and how can you find them again?
I assure you if you find your first love towards Jesus again all your problems will be resolved, especially the problem of love.
You will come to know Jesus’ spiritual love. His value is incomparable and nothing else will suffice. Everything else, you will realize, is meaningless. Fall in love with Jesus again today and you will not regret it.
If you give up the addiction, sin, temptation, and idols you are so strongly clutching to in hopes they will fulfill you, and pray to Jesus he helps you let it go. I promise you he will replace it with something better.
What Jesus gives us is better than anything that this world can give. It’s worth more than gold. It’s eternal.
Fall in love with Jesus. Give him a chance to share his heart with you today. There’s no better place to be than in his arms.
