Remember the early days...

“Remember the early days after you had received the light…” – Hebrews 10:32 

I miss the early days of my faith.  

 

Not so much the reception of Christ when I was 5 years old.  I’m talking about when I was 18 and received the light.  Illumination happened.  Light burst through a ragged veil, tore through it actually.  I was thrust into the Holy of Holies, or the risen Lord broke out.  Either way, the early days were filled with vim and vigor.  I went for broke.  I lost my mind.  I was captured and captivated.  Jesus came alive to me, in me.

 

Truth be told, I’ve been drafting behind the passion of my early day pursuits for nearly 10 years.  The relationship I forged and formed.  The thirst for community.  The ravenous consumption of Scripture.  The hunger I had for books and knowledge and wisdom.  The way I was born again to worship and the writing of and singing of new songs.  The evangelism that sprouted from a heart to share what I had experienced first-hand.  The way I would pray by myself and with clusters of other God-chasers.  The intentionality of my meetings with people, my correspondence via texts and emails, the conversations that I would steer toward fanning the eternity in people’s hearts into a white hot flame.  I could go on an on.  I am still living off the early days.  Recently, the observation and reality of that stirred such emotion in me that I could hardly speak without crying.  Barely listen to someone share something without crying.  It was as if God was making it impossible for me to ignore his promptings and the way he was trying to turn my head to look back afresh at my “early days” full in the face.

 

The early days that fueled me are now the fumes that keep me sputtering along.  Don’t get me wrong, there are moments where I experience similarities, but they are less combustible and spontaneous and more measured and predictable.  I spent some time remembering the early days and what the receiving of light looked like back then…

 

-       I started memorizing Scripture.  I would read the Word and when I would find a verse that stirred me, I would write it on a 3x5 index card and carry it everywhere I went committing it to memory, long term memory.  Deep-rooted memory.  I haven’t actively memorized Scripture for over a decade.  All that I recall in moments where I’m seeking to back up my thoughts with theology is a retrieval of what I gobbled up in the early days.  I couldn’t get enough.  Where did that go?

-       I met with people, all manner of humans.  Old souls.  Young whippersnappers.  Mentors.  Disciples.  Church folk.  Community folk.   And all the encounters were laced with the same thread, the thread of how God could possibly intersect and intercept a life, transforming it, transforming me, in the contours of any and every conversation.  I squeezed the juice out of interactions.  I wanted to make a difference.  I wanted to introduce Jesus to people and people to Jesus.  I used to say  “to love God for Pete’s sake and to love Pete for God’s sake.”  It was funny, but I made it my aim.

-       I prayed with people.  I wanted to teach people to pray, and I want to learn how to pray.  I believed prayer moved the levers of heaven.  That I was binding and loosing things as two or more gathered in his name claiming kingdom promises.  I prayed like my life depended on it.  I asked big things of God not thinking a second of disappointment or let down.  I thought he could, I believed he would.   Case closed.

-       I wrote worship songs.  It started as a way for me to stretch my gifts and to express my emotions.  Prayers set to music.  But it became a routine to grab my guitar and to craft lyrics and melodies, and then to bring them to the students in the youth ministry and sing these songs collectively.  Like the Psalmist I panted for God.  My heart and flesh cried out.  His love was better than life.  I was in love with Jesus and I simply had to pour out my heart in worship.  I was infatuated.

-       I would go to games, to events, to places where people were gathering for whatever reason.   I would yearn to meet people and somehow find a way to make a “highway for God”, preparing the way for the Lord to enter that moment however he wanted to.  I wanted to be where the people were and to connect on a deeper level.  I loved the sound of mutual laughter and the buzz of life on life interactions.  I lived for that feeling, that environment.  I wanted to create transformative moments in people, with people, for people.

-       I would invite students to join me to pray all night long at my house.  I remember a couple times when we had all night worship nights at my friend’s house and 100 kids would show up and stay up all night praying and worshiping God until breakfast.  I craved opportunities to stretch beyond our comfort zones and to embrace risk and adventure believing that is where God meets us most acutely, extravagantly, intimately.  One retreat I had students spend a couple hours reading Psalm 119 and then told them they each needed to prepare a sermon to preach to the rest of the group…and they did it!  It was one of the greatest retreats we ever had!

 

These are just a few things that came to mind.  “The Early Days” and the invasion of light and life are what I am craving today.  To remember the height from which I’ve fallen, to repent, and to return to the Living God as John wrote to the church in Ephesus, pleading with them to consecrate themselves to God’s purposes.

 

There is a verse in Galatians where Paul said he cried out with the pangs of childbirth until Christ was formed in people.  Travailing in prayer for spiritual formation in myself and the people around me must consume me again.  I can’t just manage past miracles until my expiration date; I need to cry out for new mercies and miracles to sprout up all around me.  My ache for this is boundless.  I simply cannot go on without a revival in my heart for the glory and pleasure of God.

 

So fan into flame what you’ve deposited in my heart long ago.  It’s there, it just needs an infusion of life.  So bring it, God.