A recent conversation got me thinking about how we often try to walk a #firedup kind of faith life all the time, and how when we don't feel so "fired up", we think God has left us or abandoned us, (not true by the way, Deuteronomy, Isaiah and Hebrews tell us that God will never leave us or forsake us) until we come into contact with the Holy Spirit afresh. #walkingwiththeHolySpirit #firedupfaith #tonguesoffire #aslowburningfirelastslonger #musicofthemoment
As a young person of faith, I can remember having conversations with my friends about how we could only carry on in faith by attending the two main conferences we went to every year. We longed to be at either Redline or Summer Wine, so that we could be in the intense presence of the Holy Spirit, praying in tongues and being "hit by freight trains of the Holy Spirit" at each main meeting. That physical feeling of being in God's most Holiest presence was addictive and immaturity at the time led my friends and I to think that that was what it was to walk close to God.
We imagined our lives lived with tongues of fire sitting over us and just being amazing followers of Jesus. Oh, the things we could and would do for Him! Possibilities seemed endless. We were in love with God and passionate, but the feeling was as fleeting as any emotion could be. One day we were up, and God was amazing and He loved us immensely, the next we were down and out because we couldn't feel God there anymore, and oh my goodness, I'm a sinner and have fallen so short of God's expectations, so now He doesn't love me anymore (also a lie, because the Word says that He has loved us with an everlasting love). The swings and roundabouts of first love became exhausting and competition was rife.
Wait! What?! What do you mean competition was rife? Competition and comparison became part of our God journey and I believe it does for many people of faith, who for whatever reasons, compare their journey with God to what God is doing with other people. Sometimes it's about gifting, "that person's amazing because they have THAT gift", or "that person's holier than I am because they know this and when they pray they sound like they know what they're praying about"... The list goes on and before you know it, your passion has died and you doubt that love is reciprocated anymore. How quickly the fire dies...
As I have grown up and moved on from my childish ways, friendships have changed and those things have now, thankfully, fallen by the wayside. I have come to realise that the initial stages of first love with Christ, are much the same as the first moments of love blooming between two people. It has a moment when the flames are hot, and they need to burn hard and fast. It is like a consuming fire that devours that which it has decided to burn, but as the fire takes hold, you need to turn it down and allow that fire to gently burn, so as not to burn itself out quickly. The fire takes tending, and maintaining at a slower pace to keep the temperature even, leave it too long and the fire will begin to die, or put too much oxygen on the flames and it will burn harder, but extinguish itself as it burns away. True intimacy with God, or with others, comes over time. Initially you want to be with each other always because time is what binds us to each other. We develop our relationships and connectedness with each other as we spend time together, building friendship and trust and just enjoying the time you have together. After a while of being in a relationship you become comfortable with each other, knowing that you can depend on the other person to be there, supporting, loving and looking out for you. You don't have to be with that person all the time anymore, because you just know that you're safe with them. Conversation can have comfortable silences because you are comfortable in each other's company. Same with God. We still have to tend to our relationship with Him, but as we grow in that relationship, that fire changes from a fire that is just starting out and needing the intensity and roar of the fire starting, burning and consuming the smaller twigs and sticks and then moving onto larger logs and pieces of firewood that have more substance to them and take longer to burn and they burn at a slower pace.
The rhythm of our faith journey can change tempo frequently, we just need to learn to adjust our faith to fit the music of the moment.
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