First love
They are contained in a cardboard box, locked away securely. An elastic band secures about fifty letters that my wife Kay and I exchanged when we first met and started dating. We hope that nobody will ever find them until we are both no longer alive. If they were discovered before our demise, the embarrassment would likely kill us.
Decades before email made its debut, this pair of love struck teenagers poured out their hearts to each other, resulting in oodles of gushy romantic prose. Epic literary depths were plumbed by our clunky poetry. But it’s not just the saccharine sentences that cause me to blush; as relatively new Christians, we were determined to put Jesus first in our relationship. That meant that our rather cheesy epistles were peppered with religious sentiments: “I love you so much darling, but of course I love Jesus more”, and ‘I am so grateful that the Lord brought us together, hallelujah!”
Looking back, I’ve realised that the letters reveal some rather neurotic tendencies, especially on my part. My early days as a follower of Jesus were exciting and bewildering in equal measure. Stunned by the news that there was a God who loved and cared for me, I was desperate - perhaps frantic would be a better word - to please Him. I was quite terrified that I might miss God’s perfect will, and as the choice of a life partner was the most critical decision that I would make in life, I was mortified at the thought of taking a wrong step. Added to that, a Christian friend told me that God’s plan for my life would probably be in direct conflict with anything that I wanted. I think he had previously been employed as an advisor to Job.
Yikes! I liked and loved Kay. Did this approach to the will of God mean that I should reject her and marry someone that I didn’t really want? Blessed to be part of a genuinely caring church with a smiling, understanding pastor, I ultimately navigated these hurdles, and nearly five decades later, Kay and I remain happily married.
But then I thought a little more about those letters, and realised that while they were somewhat obsessive, they do reveal hearts that utterly and totally wanted to please the Lord. Someone has said that we find ultimate peace when we make the will of God our home, and that was us. We were ready to do anything, go anywhere for Jesus. All these years later, I’m wondering if I still have the same passion.
I don’t want my first faith. It was neurotic, jumpy, and obviously, seeing as I was a biblical newbie who didn’t know the difference between the Old Testament, the New Testament and the maps at the back, it was theologically uninformed.
But first love? Now that is not only what I want, but what is vital. In addressing His followers in Ephesus in the book of Revelation, Jesus is bluntly confrontational. He commends them for their good works and perseverance, and encouraged them because they had been discerning, rejecting false teaching. They’d done well in the face of hardships. But then comes a stinging rebuke: ‘Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first’ (Rev 2: 4-5a). First love had chilled into cold religion. And as we saw in today’s notes, that had very likely affected their love for each other, and for their world.
While my professions of love for Kay were a lot about emotions, Jesus points to a love that is expressed in actions, calling the Ephesians to do what they used to do. Our feelings are not the barometer of our spirituality - rather what we do shows the true measure of our love for Christ.
So I’m praying and asking the Holy Spirit to show me where my heart is. First love for Christ is what I crave. And I’m adding another prayer request.
Dear Lord, may nobody ever find those letters.