Stayin' in Love....

When I was about 4 years old, my daddy came home with a gift. To a spoilt only kid, much loved and pampered, gifts were a dime a dozen. But that night was special. With many cootchey cooey noises I was introduced to a new friend, a teddybear! I remember Teddy so well.....a bright orange rubber bear with big black and white eyes and a spotted blue bib. My baby eyes widened as I reached out and grabbed this wonderful new thing I had been given. Then for the next 5 years almost, Teddy lived life by my side.


He was in the bath, in the barber's shop, in bed, in the garden, in the playground, on top of trees and pretty much everywhere else I went. I think mummy only stopped me from dragging him to school by hiding him everyday when I left! And when I got back, no prizes for guessing who I looked for first and who I ended up cuddling last, at night. I loved Teddy and my love showed visibly along his ragged ears where I'd teethed my baby teeth on him. It showed in his one white eye that my ballpen had missed. It showed in the orange spots scratched out in his once all-blue bib. Naah....nobody who saw Teddy could have denied he'd been loved with all the love an 8-year old could give.

Today, teddy lies somewhere in a dusty loft. He doesn't share my bed or travel everywhere with me. So what's the big deal you say? People outgrow these things...we'd be more surprised if you'd held onto him as a 30-year old you say! True enough. Why would you be surprised? Everybody knows it. Love wears thin with time doesn't it?

The attachment you felt for that first bicycle, that rush of adrenalin when you glimpsed your first love, that swagger you adopted when you got your first job, that tender feeling of love and passion when you first got married......they all evaporate over time. Time, the great healer is also the great desensitiser. And human memories are too short to remember that once-great rush of feeling as newer and newer affections vie greedily for your attention everyday! How true then this is, with our relationship with the Lord too.


When we first taste of His Holy Spirit and experience the liberating power of being washed in His blood, the love, passion and loyalty that swell up in us, keep us floating into heights of intimacy with Him, such as which no other tongue can describe. Every voice is His, every incident a message from Him. Every sense is tuned into Him and every nerve of your body longs to be used, to do His will. Every emotion is heightened for His sake and every thought, word and deed is breathed with eyes and heart turned heavenward.


But as hours turn to days and days to weeks, months and years, the ardour cools. God's not so exciting anymore. Sure He's there and you still love Him. But He's no longer the love of your life and the delight of your heart. Other things take precendence....life shifts focus away from Him and like Teddy, the Lord too soon becomes a vague memory.


The church in Ephesus was guilty of forgetting their first love for the Lord (Rev. 2) and God expresses His disappointment in a very lucid manner. Unless they learn to love Him as before, He vows to wipe them off the face of the map. Needless to say Ephesus turned a deaf ear, for the once mighty church-town no longer exists today.


Take note reader. If you once loved the Lord with all your heart, and if with time you have forgotten the sweet taste of His love, no need to fear. Simply return to the fountains of living waters through the communion of His holy Word. The Lord is unchanging, He loves you still. And He longs for you to find that forgotten teddy bear again.