Go back? No way!

When Misha and I were newlyweds we had been given a hand-me-down double bed.   Now I had no problem with that because I was used to sleeping in a single bed and so was Misha.  There were the occasional incidents where I would roll over in my sleep and nail Mish in the face with my elbow.  That usually didn't wake her up but it would wake me up.  So for a few years we slept peacefully in the double bed and were quite comfortable with it.

Misha came home one day and announced she had bought us a king sized bed at one of these truck load sales.  It was delivered shortly thereafter.  We moved the double bed out and set the king size mattress and box spring on the floor because we didn't have a bed frame for a king size bed (that came a few years later).  I guess we were going with a sort of Asian decor theme. :)

The first night we slept in the bed I felt like I was sleeping on the state of Texas.  It was huge!!  "Misha!  Are you over there?!"  I heard her yell back, "Yes!"   There was almost an echo.

Now we had been comfortable with the double bed but this new king sized bed was amazing!  I slept the best I had ever slept and I didn't nail Misha in the face with my elbow.  I had room to roll around in comfort.  Our whole sleeping world had radically changed for the better but before that we were totally clueless about what we were missing out on.

There have been times when we have gone on trips and stay with family and friends and we sleep in a double bed again (or even a queen), I'm reminded that I won't buy another double bed for our bedroom.  Once you have moved up you can't move back.  I don't want to go back to a double, or even  queen.  I want to continue to experience the king sized.

When I read about the Hebrew nation as Moses is leading them through the wilderness and they start complaining and want to go back to Egypt I wonder, "What were they thinking?"  They would rather live in slavery and bondage because they have to eat the same food everyday in the wilderness.  They would rather be whipped and forced to do extreme physical labor and even do jobs that put their lives at risk!  What's up with that?

But I think that often as Christians we do the same thing spiritually.  We experience spiritual growth, a closer walk with God, a new level of maturity and then decide we would rather go back to living like we lived before.  How can we experience the King and want to go back to our old way of living?  Christians do this all the time.  What are we thinking?

No one who puts their hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.

Luke 9:62

If you have experienced God in a new way, grown spiritually, taken new steps in your faith, don't look back and think you would be comfortable living like you did before.