Introduction to First Love

The First Love course is about creating space to encounter and worship God. It's not about how God fits into your life, or five steps to victorious faith. I've attempted to keep our focus on God throughout this entire course.

Why is this so important?

Many reasons, but let me give you one. In John 17, Jesus says that, "This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

To know God is to begin to experience eternal life. This course is not about an academic understanding of God, but about experiencing the true, rich, full, and eternal life that God intends for us to have as we know God.

This course will engage your mind, but more than that, my hope is that it brings life to your soul.

Because this is our goal, my hope is that at no point in this course will you experience guilt, shame, or fear. Rather, I want to unburden you, that you might know forgiveness, acceptance, and love.

So if our goal is to know the only true God, then we need to ask ourselves: what does it mean to encounter this God?

As I have thought about this question, I have come to realize that it is unlike anything else we do in our lives. Why? In part, because God is not like anything in Creation, but he is the Creator of everything else that we think about.

And that creates a problem! How do we start to study something - or, in this case, someone - that differs completely from everything else in our experience?

Of course, there are many ways to approach this challenge, but OUR first step will be to get clarity about who we are and where we are as we begin this journey.

For our first step forward, we're going to start with an ancient prayer written by St. Augustine in his Confessions.

O Lord my God, I believe in you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Insofar as I can, insofar as you have given me the power, I have sought you.

I became weary and I labored.

O Lord my God, my sole hope, help me to believe and never to cease seeking you. Grant that I may always and ardently seek out your countenance. Give me the strength to seek you, for you help me to find you and you have more and more given me the hope of finding you.

Here I am before you with my firmness and my infirmity. Preserve the first and heal the second.

Here I am before you with my strength and my ignorance.

Where you have opened the door to me, welcome me at the entrance; where you have closed the door to me, open to my cry; enable me to remember you, to understand you, and to love you.

Amen.

This week, dedicate a specific time each day to seek God through prayer. Use the prayer by St. Augustine as a starting point for your prayer time. At the end of the week, reflect on how this practice has affected your awareness of God's presence in your life.

If you need help starting a daily quiet time, I recommend the LookUP course (included in The Uncommon Pursuit Academy).