by Miranda McCasland on March 24, 2025
Every February, I have the distinct honor and privilege of sitting with our middle and high school students here at Timberline and talk about relationships and dating. It’s a series that feels a bit like tradition—we return to it like clockwork. Students hear their leaders talk about dating, singleness, sexuality, value, and what God has to say about all the tricky stuff. They sit in small groups, they hear teachings and they ask excellent questions. We believe their relationships—platonic and romantic—have a deep impact on their lives, whether they believe that yet or not—so we spend a lot of time here and we come back year after year. It’s beautiful and sometimes awkward (how could it not be?!) and one of my favorite things we do around here.
There’s a moment during this series each year that I think about year-round. It sticks with me—even in my slightly more grown-up state. I replay it, I come back to it. It honestly challenges me:
“The most important love story you will have in your life is your story with Jesus.”
I’m not certain that statement always shakes my student friends, but it shakes me. Often, when I say it, it feels like I’m teaching myself more than I am teaching them.
The reality is…it’s easy for me to lose sight of my relationship with Jesus. I will search far and wide for a plethora of other things I think will satisfy my heart: financial stability, friendships and community, dating, fun and new experiences, the list goes on. Those are sweet, sweet gifts from the Lord—but if I am not careful, I place my devotion to Jesus on the back burner of my life in favor of these lesser loves. I make these good things bigger than God in my life—I see them as a way to fix up my life to be just right…no dependence on God needed. I treat these good things like little idols—I worship at the altar of finding the right boyfriend, the most put-together budget, or the healthiest meal plan. They take over my life. Your list of things might be different depending on your season, but I bet you too have a list.
Everything looks good from the outside and I am doing all of the “right” things, but I miss Jesus in all of it—I forget the love I have for Him. I say he’s the center of my life, but the spirals my thought patterns run in reflect something else.
Maybe you’ve been in love and can remember the feelings of first love—the butterflies, the constant wondering about the other person, the counting down until the next time you get to see them. If I am honest here, I think back to the beginning of my story with Jesus and I see something just like those feelings and commitments…and then I look at myself now, and I worry that maybe those have faded away the longer I have followed Jesus. I ask myself:
- Have I lost the willingness to do whatever God’s call for my life is?
- Is the desire to hear anything and everything that the Lord has to say dull in my life?
- Do I feel like I can’t get enough time with the Lord? Like I want to spend as much time as I can with Him? Is spending time with Jesus simply a to-do on my long list of tasks to accomplish?
- Have I tried harder to be productive for the Kingdom than to know God and be known by Him? Have I thought it was more important to be good at something for Jesus than to draw close to Him?
It's nothing new. You and I aren’t special if our answers to these questions are yes. As Jesus addresses the seven churches of Revelation, he says something similar about the church in Ephesus:
“I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.” (Revelation 2:2-5, CSB)
The church in Ephesus has it down—they are complimented on their works, their labor, their endurance, their effort to know the truth, and their perseverance on behalf of the Gospel. It looks GOOD and they are doing all of the right things! Yet, here, Jesus says they’ve abandoned the love they had. They’ve given up their first love. Everything looks great from the outside, but they’re missing the point—the love they started with. He asks them to remember how far they’ve fallen—how bad they need the Gospel—and repent/change.
This Lent season, I’m challenged by this. It is easy for my life to be just like the life of the church in Ephesus. As I spend these 40 days leading up to Easter fasting and praying in an effort to gently turn my heart towards Jesus, I notice where I am just like them. It becomes plain to me where I’ve feebly tried to replace the greatest love I have ever known. I need Jesus badly—He’s the only one who is able to truly satisfy my heart—but lesser loves have taken priority in my life.
Lent offers me an opportunity to see these lesser loves clearly—all they offer me and all that they don’t offer me. It offers me a season to identify where I have made both good and bad desires and feelings into false idols. Best of all, as I notice these lesser loves for what they are, I am able to be honest with the Lord about them. The dedicated time of Lent isn’t magical, but it does give me devoted time to slow down, assess my heart/thoughts, notice and return my life back to the trustworthy love that I know in Jesus. Simply put, it properly recenters the most important love story I will ever know.
This Lent season, what if you drew close to your first love? What if you spent time with Jesus the way you would a budding new relationship?
What if you came back and really sat with the Lord, maybe even retraced your steps with Him like the wild and beautiful love story that it is? What if you wrote that story down—all the big and small details—so you have a tangible reminder of how good God has been to you?
What if you fasted from letting one of your lesser loves take control of your thoughts and instead surrendered them to the Lord, knowing that He wants to walk the journey of your life with you?
The best love story of our lives is here with Jesus, friends. May we remember and return to it. May we hold it with the great value that we hold first loves—tenderly and with great commitment.
