Author and speaker Dee Brestin has found that intimacy with Christ comes from falling in love. This falling in love, like falling in love with a significant other, comes in three stages.
- The first stage is the euphoric first love stage. Falling in love is wonderful and different.
- The second stage is the wilderness. In this stage the other individual doesn’t do things quite the way we would do things. We begin to realize that life is still hard.
- The third stage is invincible love. According to Dee, many Christians and many couples never get to this stage and settle for something less. In this stage, even though you don’t know what the other individual is doing, you have confidence in their character and love, no matter what happens.
A true, sustaining love of Christ will go through these stages and not always be easy. Sometimes, however, in our desire for life to be easy we fall into a rut and fail to examine the sin in our lives. According to Dee, such complacency showcases a lack of fear of the Lord and a lack of trusting his sustaining power.
In some cases, we can’t see the problem, all we cans see are symptoms of a problem.
Dee shares a time in her own life where she had multiple administrative assistants quit after only working for her for a short time. She assumed it was their problem. But, through a friend, God showed her that she was being manipulative of her employee. She repented of this and had a significantly better relationship with her next administrative assistant.
“When something bad comes out of our mouth we need to say, ‘What’s my problem with the Lord right now?’ Because obviously there is one.”
Key Scriptures: Isaiah 62:5, Psalm 115:1, Psalm 68:5, Isaiah 41:10
