In the summer between the third and fourth grades we moved house. We lived in the Central Valley of Northern California, and we moved into an old, family house on the top of a hill. There were oak trees around it and a pasture in the back that also had several fruit trees in it. It was a great place, but it didn't have any air conditioning. The summers in the Sacramento area can get up over 100 degrees for several weeks at a time. We would sleep out in the backyard in our sleeping bags under the stars. I have never seen such stars since. You could lose yourself staring up and out into the galaxy.One day, early in the morning, I was outside and I noticed a young girl roller-skating on the cement patio of the house next door. When I saw her, I was struck down as if one of the stars fell out of the sky and landed on my head. I could not stop watching her. It turned out that she was in my grade, and in fact she was in my classroom at school when classes began that autumn. I loved her like a sick, sad, pathetic puppy for three years. What a dope I was. She was my first love.Imagine what I felt like years later when I ran across these words in the Bible: “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lamp stands: I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles, but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.”Did that mean I had to hurry up and find out where that little girl went in the world and make things right between us? Some, who would take a kind of woodenheaded and very subjective approach to interpretation, might say so. Weird as it sounds, they would say, “You better find her. You need to pray for her.”I don't think so.The Bible verse wasn't talking about the current condition of my heart regarding a little girl I knew when I was a child. It was talking about the current condition of my heart regarding the God who broke into my life and made Himself known to me when I was a young man. My fascination with Him then turned my whole life around. The knowledge of God that I gained in my first ten years with Him sustained me through some of the most challenging and painful circumstances of my life. But now what? Am I living in a current love for God or only the faded memory of my first love? It's worth a thought.Many of you may not even have gotten to the stage of first love yet; one of my best friends in New York insists he is agnostic, but I kid him that the Hound of Heaven is fast on his heels. God is relentless with those He has set His heart upon. And that is worth a thought.I'm tired. I'm tired of the rat race. If I were a wealthy and successful businessman, it would be time to sell the business and move to a south sea island. But wait… I already live on an island. So, how wonderful is it to realise that you're tired on an island paradise? This kind of tired though is not just physical fatigue, and it's not existential depression. I'm not having a mid-life crisis; it's too late for that, so I guess I just missed out on the red sports car and the slick chick. No, I suspect it's got something to do with my first love. I find that I do yearn for Him. It's a yearning to be done and to be with Him. Don't freak out; I'm not suicidal. No. I think I'm entering the same realm I witnessed in a great preacher who came to preach a series in chapel when I was in seminary.At the time WA Criswell was pastor of the largest Southern Baptist Church in America. He was regarded to have been one of the 20th century's greatest expository preachers.He preached over 4,000 sermons and his congregation grew from 7,000 to over 24,000. When he came to preach a series of messages for a week, he chose to preach about heaven. He started off in a weary tone of voice, and he admitted that he was more interested in heaven than earth, because he had more friends and loved ones there than he did here. I could feel that then, and I feel it now, but now I also feel the weariness of it. When I was younger I was always striving to accomplish something important. What a waste. Someone once said that youth is wasted on the young. I wish I had been less interested in accomplishing something great and more interested in getting into step with my first love.I could live in the grandest estate on this island and still feel this weariness. There is nothing in this world that could be salve for it. I am tired of quick fix approaches to Christianity, the simple formulas for how to have success, and I'm tired of striving for success. There is the striving for money and there is the striving for status, or power, or position and recognition. I'm tired of religious leaders leading parades and banging gongs for insignificant things, and I'm tired of teachers who fail to teach. I respect the quiet, diligent pastor who looks after the few people God has entrusted to his care, and that goes on out of sight; I don't see the half of it. But I'm tired anyway. I want my first love and I want Him to set this miserable world straight.Oh, if it were only as simple as watching a little girl on roller skates!