Recently I wrote about renewing our first love for Jesus and about nurturing that first love. Those posts spoke to me, causing me to realize that I had lost my first passion, my first love for Jesus.

So, I confessed this sin and began to take steps to restore it. Part of this was asking God to show me what was hampering my first love. The  obvious things were being busy with work, projects and reading email, which diverted my attention away from the important to the trivial. Repentance and working to make a switch here helped.

But there was a deeper problem, draining the passion from me. This came out as I was journaling. Every day we pray for persecuted Christians around the world (an estimated 220 million). We read stories about them and the horrendous things some of them suffer. Deep down in me there was an anger developing at God for allowing this. It came partly because I felt so bad for these brothers and sisters—but also because I feared God may bring such suffering to me.

What should I do to correct this anger, this “first lover killer” fueled by my unbelief and rebellion.  Tomorrow I will tell you what God led me to do about it.

Picture: woman widowed for her faith