Do you remember when you fell in love?  I do!   Trust me on this, as hard as it may be to believe… I was the farthest thing from a ladies man when I was young.  I’ve only had one serious relationship my entire life and that is with my wonderful wife Denise.  And you know… I remember falling in love with her.  We were in college and ran cross country together… go WCU!!!  In college, we had tons of time to just hang out… to go on walks, to watch movies together, to just <drumroll> talk!  We would ask each other tons of questions, laugh together and do spontaneous trips to see things like beautiful waterfalls.  I remember those times… falling in love is fun.  We’ve been married now for eight years and I love her more than ever… but you know… I really think it’s hard to cultivate love in the busyness that our lives have become.  In fact, I have to be very intentional about creating times for us to cultivate that love.  We can fill every second of our schedule with ministry, doing things with the kids, sporting events, and a million other things that compete for our time and attention.  I have to intentionally date my wife in order to grow in our love.

As I thought about when I fell in love with Denise and how now, it’s much tougher to cultivate that love because of busyness, it reminded me of the greatest love in my life… my love for Jesus!  Do you remember when you first believed?  Was it ever sweeter?  And more than that… where is that love now?  I actually think that sometimes church can be the hardest place to cultivate a love for our Savior.  Sounds ironic I know, and before you pick up your stones, please know that I think the local church is both essential and lovely in the life of a believer.  Church is great for fellowship, for accountability, for being taught and teaching others… but sometimes I find it hard to just fall in love with God when I’m at the local body called the church.  Why?  Because, without realizing it, we have gotten so busy “doing” that we have neglected sitting at His feet.  Think about your Sunday morning experience for a minute.  If it’s anything like mine, you are probably getting out of breath just thinking about it.  So what’s the solution?  Certainly not abandoning the body… that would be setting yourself up for failure.  But rather, like I must do with my wife… we have to start being intentional about being still.  I pray this is not heretical… but we have to “date” our Savior!  We have to be intentional because our society has placed such a high value on being busy that it feels almost sinful to be still… and yet, that is exactly what we need.  There is a stench of death in churches all around our country because apathy is decaying our hearts, and apathy only exists because we are not cultivating love with our Savior.  And to do that… we HAVE to learn to be still.  Look at your calendar… are there intentional “still” times… are there times you have slotted out to fall in love with Jesus?  Convicting?  Sure is to me!  God forgive my neglect of Your love.  As Jars of Clay sang, “I want to fall in love with You…” please help me to learn the art of being still.  Please help me to create the right environment to fall in love with You.