When It Was New

Those early days of walking with Jesus. Where have thirty-five years gone? Sometimes, it felt so hard to keep following, but that’s because trust was so hard for me then.

Following gets a whole lot easier when you trust the one you’re following.

He laid a track record for my untrusting heart so that I could find my way to His faithfulness. Comfort in the hard places, answers to prayers I said in desperation, little by little shifts of my heart toward Him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to follow Him, or didn’t want to give Him my whole heart and my whole life – I just didn’t know how and I didn’t know what He would do with what I was giving.

Thirty-five years of learning to trust Him more than I trust anything else in this world. Discovering that He is more than I ever could have imagined He would be – more loving, more kind, more merciful, more trustworthy. Once I discovered the goodness of God, I mean really tasted it, it was game over for anything else that would fight for my affections.

God has no worthy opponent for my heart.

I remember the newness of discovering His voice. That God would speak and I could hear Him in my heart, well, that never gets old, I’ll tell ya that. Today, He is still speaking. Through His Word, but also through a still small voice in my heart, and often through pictures. From time to time, He has grown quiet, but never silent.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

John 10:27

I remember the hunger of when it was new. The insatiable desire for more of Him. To just sit with His people in prayer and worship for hours sometimes. I only wanted to talk about Him, nothing else. Every other topic of conversation became frivolous. I had a death grip on the hem of His robe in those days, wanting to just attach myself to Him and never let go. Some people, mostly family, just didn’t get it and thought I was off the deep end, but you know what? God planted me in a church full of people who got it. People who were hungry with me, and when you have people around you who share your hunger for Jesus, man, nothing can touch that. But I have also experienced the opposite, and it’s heartbreaking. Being part of a community of people who are content to stay where they are, not really interested in knowing Him more, in changing, or in walking out what the scriptures describe as the life of a follower of Christ. They like the company of fellow Christians, but they aren’t hungry for anything more than what they have. That’s a hard place to be for anyone who hungers for God.

Find hungry people and be with them. There’s nothing else like it.

When it was new, I wept over His Word, wept in worship, wept in prayer. It wasn’t the whipping up of emotions, it was a born again spirit responding to a realm I had never experienced. People get so scared of being emotional in church, but when you come to the realization that God is near, that His Spirit is living on the inside of you, that Jesus is real and His love is real and His goodness is real… I mean, how can you have all of that swirling around you and remain stoic? Unmoved?

Thirty-five years have changed a lot of things about my life. But I think what prompted this post is realizing that today, I’m as hungry as I ever was. I still want to be with Him every minute of every day. I still long for hours of conversation about Him, and prayer with His people. I still long for Him to change me, teach me, and lead me into the things and places that I have yet to go. And I still weep over Him, and I never want that to stop. Walking with Jesus has never felt old. Not once.

There is no other love that is worthy of being our first love, and first love never grows old.

And I want that for you, whoever you are. I want you to be crazy about Jesus no matter how long you’ve walked with Him. He is so worthy of a hunger that won’t quit, a desire for His nearness, and emotions that run free in His presence.

I pray that for you, and for us all, walking with Jesus will always feel like when it was new.