This year my husband Duane and I will be celebrating 25 years of marriage. Recently, we went on an early celebratory vacation. It was an exciting week of being alone, seeing a new place, and celebrating these past 25 years.

It is good to remember.

We are brought back to memories of the journey we have been on with one another for so long. We reminisce about how God brought us together; we remember the highs and lows and everything in between. It all started with a love for and a commitment to God and each other. So we took the week to remember and to celebrate and be with one another.

Life gets busy and time moves fast, and WE get lost in it sometimes

This happens in our relationship with God too. Life just keeps moving. Things get busy, and our relationship with Him gets pushed to the back and forgotten.

This morning in my bible study time, I was taken back to remembrance. I was looking at a couple of scriptures and God really spoke to me in a different way. Things were highlighted to me that I have “known” in my mind but maybe not really understanding the depth of it all in my heart.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. Romans 5:6-10

As I read these words they penetrated my heart. The love that God had for me, for you, for the world, to send His only Son to die, that we might be saved from His wrath. Not only did He do this, but He did it while we were ungodly, while we were sinners, and enemies of God.

He died for us while we were right where we were. We weren’t cleaned up, we weren’t perfected and put together, and we weren’t obeying all the laws correctly.

This truth is freeing!

This truth is overwhelming!

Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. Colossians 2:6-7

As I read this, I was prompted to remember how I received Christ Jesus, my Lord, and Savior. I should be walking in Him the same way I received Him

I received Him with overwhelming love and joy because I understood I wasn’t hopeless anymore. I received Him with hope because I understood that my life was important to Him, and I had a purpose in Him. I received Him with reverance and awe because I had seen who He is to me. I was overflowing with gratitude because I began to realize what He had done for me. I say I began to realize because I have spent years learning to understand the depth of what He has done and what I have been given in Him. I still realize deeper still how much He loves me and how much He has done for me and continues to do for me.

Am I walking with Him this way?

Or have I allowed life to dull the relationship? Have I allowed people, busyness, and responsibility to come in and crowd out our time together? Have I allowed the weariness of life to steal that love, hope, and joy I once had and walked in with Him?

Like with marriage, we have to get intentional to make time to be with each other to remember that first love; we need to do this with the One who should be our first love in life. We should continue falling in love with our spouse, and we should continue falling in love with Jesus every day.

I want to encourage you to take some time today. It can be 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or 2 hours; however, it works. Take time to remember your first love today. Take time to remember how you received Jesus and where you first fell in love with Him.

Take time to remember and be intentional to walk in Him the same way.

This was a much-needed reminder for me today, and it set my mind in the right place and had me walking in the right direction. My heart is full of love, hope, and joy today; I pray yours will be too.