"Need a Lift"

I drive my kids to school. One school is about 3 miles to the west. The other is ¼ of a mile to the East. Many mornings, my daughter is a little slower in getting ready. She’s already becoming quite the diva when it comes to getting ready. Combine that with her inherited disdain for the A.M., and it can take some time! So, I’ll drive my son to school first and then swing back by the house to get her. When we 1st started this routine, she thought it was so cool and funny to go stand at the end of our driveway when I drove back home. As soon as my car came into sight, she’d jump and wave and smile that polar cap melting smile of hers and start waving her thumb. I pulled up and said “need a lift”. She thought it was so funny for me to pick her up this way! She was so excited. We laughed all the way to her school that morning.
Today was no different. As I drove up, there she was at the end of the driveway, all toothless smiles and waves and hitching thumbs’. When I rolled the window down and asked if she “needed a lift”, she threw her little head back and cracked up. Then with full eagerness, she jumped in and kissed me. I can’t think of a better way to start the day!!
What struck me about all of this is the fervor and energy she still puts into this silly routine. She acts it out each day as if it’s the 1st time! She hasn’t lost any passion for it. It hasn’t become old hat. She doesn’t find it boring or the least bit goofy. There is no apathy. In her mind, she is a beautiful hitchhiker being picked up by her daddy! (I imagine though that I look a little more like a Prince and my yellow Aveo looks more like a horse drawn golden carriage ☺) She still loves it! And because of that, I do to! It is truly beautiful when you think about it.
Why don’t we act this same way in our relationship with our savior? Do you remember when it all began? DO you remember your salvation? Do you remember the feeling after being baptized? I do! I was SO excited! I was on fire. I smiled, sang, danced and was full of joy! There was nothing less than 100%.
So what happened? Why is it that now, often times we are dull, passionless, and generally apathetic when we approach the Lord? I have a theory. Want to hear it? Here it is: LIFE HAPPENED. Many things cause us to lose fervor: sickness, death, financial pressures, jobs, relationships etc. At times, it’s not easy to feel that excited any more.
But the truth is this:….we should still be as excited today as we were in the beginning! In all truth, maybe even more excited! NOTHING has changed! Jesus still died for our sins, He still loves us in spite of ourselves, and He still meets us every morning, right where we are with our thumbs up, waiting for Him…never failing to show up!
I think of the verse in Revelation 2:4 that says “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Jesus was reminding the church in Ephesus that they may still have the right motions but they’d lost the right emotions! He was calling them back to the days when their love for Jesus was an all-consuming passion!
May we all be reminded of the same thing today. May we all learn to fall in love with Jesus again!