Several years ago, my husband bought a three diamond necklace for our anniversary and gave it to me as a gift. I, of course, was elated – just as any wife would be when her husband does something extra special to make her feel loved and appreciated.
Panic that made the first round of worry about the lost necklace pale in comparison, because this time, I knew it was gone. Never to be seen again. Lost, forever. I was all frowns. And a few tears. Devastated.
But in all honesty, I knew I had only myself to blame. I had let it slip on my priority list, and misplaced it. Not once, but twice.
I took my necklace for granted, didnt give it the special care it deserved, and even acted negligently. As a result, it has been lost, found, then lost again.
At first, when we discover Jesus and find faith, we are overwhelme with gratitude and excitement.
Then we get complacent and God gets pushed further down on the priority list, eventually causing us to fall away from God, losing our faith….. Yet later, we may experience a a great spiritual encounter with God at a conference or at church, and we begin to focus on our faith once again.
For example, I accepted Christ as a child, but walked away from Him in my teenage and college years. Then a few years later, I found Him again in a powerful worship service, as I embraced His forgiveness and love and grasped a new understanding of who He really was.
But then days, weeks and months passed, with life in full swing, and that passionate fire for Christ became a small flicker. Not completely lost, but misplaced.
I have attended women’s conferences which rocked my faith to the core – conferences where I felt God’s presence in every ounce of my being, as I held my hands high, sang worship songs, allowed tears of joy to stream down my face, and heard God’s voice speaking to my heart.
But then days, weeks and months passed, with life in full swing, and that passionate fire for Christ became a small flicker once again. Not completely lost, but misplaced.
I have experienced times of great commitment and closeness to God, but then a tragedy occurs, or I received some bad news, and secretly wondered why God allowed that to happen.
Then days, weeks and months passed, and the fire of faith slowly got dimmer and dimmer. But as He always does, God gently pulled me back into His presence.
If not careful, we can find ourselves living in this cycle of lost and found faith more often than we would like – regardless of how “spiritual” or “religious” we are. It happens to the best of Christians.
Just like my necklace, we can have this same complacency about our faith and not even realize it is missing. As the gravitational pull of life which draws our focus off of God, and onto our needs and circumstances, we inadvertently forget to look for God, talk with Him, and make Him a part of our every day life.
Just like my necklace, we can feel lost or disconnected from God for a variety of reasons, but then encounter Him in a fresh and exciting and new way, helping us to find our way back to Him and reigniting our passionate faith.
Just like my necklace, we can quickly lose that faith once again, as we fall back our normal routines, and so the cycle of lost and found faith continues.
So how do we break the cycle? How do we make our faith a priority, even when life feels demanding and overwhelming? How we do continue trusting God, even when bad things happen? How we do find our way back, when we feel lost and disconnected?
How do we keep the fire for Christ burning in our hearts?
There are several solutions to breaking the cycle. We’ll talk more about those over the next couple weeks, but if have any suggestions for the rest of us, based on your own faith experiences, please share!
Better late than never, right?
One thing that’s always helped me…although it may sound silly to some? I have a Me & God session every morning before my day starts and then? I take Him with me!! No matter where I’m going or what I’m doing that day? I just imagine Jesus is right here with me. After a few days of practice? You will see him! Sitting here next to me at my desk in the office at work…watching/reading over my shoulder anything I pull up on the Internet; sitting next to me in the car listening to whatever comes out of my mouth as I vent, sing, etc….
and sometimes? Standing next to me with His hand over my mouth as someone makes me angry and my Irish temper flares!
It will really have an impact on what you say, think, watch, read etc…when you realize that Jesus is observing EVERYthing you do!!