Tragedy and First Love

I was listening to a song on the radio tonight. It's one that I really like; we sing it often at church.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

(credit where credit is due: "Come, Though Fount of Every Blessing" Robert Robinson, 1758)

I got to thinking about the words. Prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love. For me, at least, it's so true. When you're around a lot of Christians, you'll often hear about "leaving your first love" or "getting back to your first love". Well, that's what it's about. We meet God, we fall madly in love. The burning desire to be with Him lasts a few months, maybe a couple of years, but then we fall into a routine. Just like with regular relationships.

I don't want to leave my first love. I want to be as close to God and as on fire for Him as ever. But how?

I remember back to 2009. I had a miscarriage and while in the ER, I found myself praying over and over and over. And singing praise songs to myself over and over for hours. Afterwards, I hungered for God like never before. This feeling was very strong for about 6 weeks. Then, while I had grown and matured in my faith, I still slipped back to the old routine.

And it dawned on me tonight that maybe the way to keep a burning desire for God is to always be going through tragedies. Perhaps this explains why, in the Bible, God seems to always have awful plans for his most faithful followers. Perhaps Paul went through trial after trial specifically to keep his faith very strong, to keep him close to his First Love.

I, of course, don't want to experience trials or tragedies any more than anyone else does. But if God can use them, then I somewhat understand their place in our lives. And I think I have a clearer vision of why Paul and other "heroes" of the Bible always seemed to have such rotten lives.

Things to ponder...