And then...life. And we're left trying to find God all over again, trying to learn to love Him all over again, trying to learn His love for us all over again.
And I'm thankful for this.
I think back to some of the first things I ever knew about God - or thought that I knew about God. Some of the earliest experiences that I had of Him, some of the first moments that I knew for sure His love. I think about the wonderful memories that those things hold in my heart, the solid foundation that they have created for every bit of faith that has come afterward.
But I also realize how many seasons of my life I have had since then that I simply wouldn't have made it through with my faith intact if that was all the faith that I had, if that was all I ever knew of God.
I would still love Him, I think....maybe...but it wouldn't be a meaningful, intimate kind of love. It'd be the kind of love you have for a relative you only see once or twice a year who doesn't ever seem to know what's been going on in your life. Who seems to care, but hasn't stayed connected. Who you love, but you come to find out that you don't really know. Not in any way that matters. That's not really love. It's something, but it's not really love.
The truth is that I have needed every little thing I have learned about God, every little thing that I've had to fight for. All of the things that I've come to know after being almost sure that I lost Him again, that He didn't follow me into whatever season I just entered into. The truth is, He entered into every single one of those seasons with me, and He invited me into a deeper faith in each of them.
He invited me to find Him anew, to discover something different, to take that firm foundation block on which I had set my faith and start building on it, start strengthening it, start stretching it out to accommodate more of the inevitable human experience - love, loss, victory, defeat, sickness, health, questions, confident assurance. All of it.
And every season has given me more to draw on in the next one. More to trust in. More to hope in. More to know for sure. Every season has made me more unshakable, no matter what comes next.
Some persons try to live forever on whatever little bit they know about God. They try to cling to that, no matter what the season is. And that leads them to sometimes think that God has probably changed, or disappeared, or doesn't love them any more.
But that's simply not true.
The God I have known in seasons past is still good. Always has been, always will be. But if that's the kind of goodness He brought to this season, I would, at the very least, think it strange. In fact, I think sometimes about the little things of God that I have loved so much from seasons past, and I realize that if those little things were to pop into this season, they would worry me. They would concern me. Because the challenges I face in this season are not the challenges He was answering in that one, and I realize that to see those signs of His love today would make me wonder whether those challenges were coming back, too.
No, I love the God that I find in every season. I love knowing more of Him. I love having the chance to grow my faith every time I move. To have a God to hold onto while at the same time, having one to keep discovering, too.
It is the most amazing of all love stories, and I get to be right in the middle of it.
It's so cool.
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