people love talking about the “good old days.” we love remembering, growing nostalgic and thinking about the days of our youth and flaunting to younger generations that we had it best.
i do this to my sisters…telling them, “you have no idea what my childhood was like…i remember when we didn’t even have internet in the house…when we had to call our friend’s landline and talk to their parents and use manners to get them to hand the phone over…when the movie theater was only $5…when mary kate and ashley were my icons…when capri sun and dunkaroos were the treasure trove of after-school snacks…when Christmas was the ultimate success the year i got a bop-it.”
i could go on for days….i didn’t even cover my aol screen name or “little bear.”
i’m proud to be a 90s kid.
but i think it’s funny when i hear myself brag about how much better life was “back then.” why do we do that? why do grandparents love reminiscing about how far they walked to school, or our parents about playing kick-the-can with the neighborhood kids because xbox didn’t exist yet?
i think there is something wired within us that desires to go back. to go back to simpler times and childlike living. but i wonder if it isn’t the environment that we want to go back to, maybe it’s that version of ourselves we want to reawaken. maybe we want to be kids again, regardless of what decade we grew up in. maybe it’s not that i really want to live in a world of barbies and living room forts again (or maybe i really do ;), but it’s that i want to be that person again. to be excited by everything. to be easily entertained. to look forward to spending the night at friends’ houses and living carefree. and maybe it’s that much easier to encounter God when we think like little kids, dropping our skepticism and embracing imagination. i want to share this quote that i have written in the front of my journal…
“there was a time when every blanket became a cape, when every couch became a kingdom, and swimming pools grew into vast oceans. there were days when gravity was something to be overcome and the weather was something to behold. moments wherein time stopped, worlds faded in and out of reality with ease, strangers were interesting and things unknown could only stay that way until we gaze upon them. do you remember when you didn’t need to be inspired? when you simply were? your heart and mind were jarred by your senses, every sight, every smell, every sound creating a new possibility and dream of a future not yet realized. when was the last time you ran as fast as you could? driven by curiosity, fueled by exploration, fought to stay awake for just one more minute to soak in what the world had to offer? it’s time to remember, to close your eyes and breathe, taking in the sounds and smells around you. rest long enough to feel the world around you, to feel small in order to step into something huge. you’re still you. created to create, designed to dream, imagined to imagine, you exist in the space between what is and what could be. there is nothing ordinary about you, because there is nothing ordinary about the God who created you, who loves you, who breathed life into you. it is time to dream again, to pioneer and explore, unhindered by caution, cynicism, or weariness. it’s time to awaken and arise to the world around you, to what could and can be, for God is doing a new thing and it’s time we remember we are invited. it’s time we awaken the wonder.”
every time i read this, i am taken back. i remember that giddy feeling of running down the stairs on christmas morning or playing cowboys and indians with my brothers, being legitimately afraid of being “shot” again. i remember jumping through sprinklers and adventuring into the woods behind my house, like a real life explorer. when we grow up and grow accustomed to the world.. when things don’t seem so new and fresh and exciting anymore, i think we start to think about God that way. i think we get cocky about how experienced we are at our small section of life that we know. we begin to believe we know a lot, that maybe what we know is all there is to know. or all that is vital to know. that maybe what we know of God is all there is to know, or it’s all that is vital to know.
that is a devastating thought.
i’ve realized that traveling often makes it easier for me to grow in my relationship and intimacy with the Lord. being in new places, around new people, new experiences, new foods, it reminds me that i’m not a know-it-all. there’s a lot more of the world that i have never known or experienced. so it’s easier for me to recognize that there’s a lot more to the Father that i have never known or experienced. it’s humbling. it’s freeing. it’s exciting. it makes me feel like a kid again.
it shows me that i need to put myself in the new to get back to the old. to do something or go somewhere i haven’t before and venture back to the old me, the one that was curious, the one that thought it necessary to try something for the first time or ask more questions. it makes it easier to try something with God for the first time or ask Him more questions…because there is enough of God to have walked with Him forever and still just barely have scratched the surface. the good old days with Jesus are always and forever ahead of me.
“God is doing a new thing and it’s time we remember we are invited.”
