Toothbrush Truth by Ruth Clemence

Unscrew the toothpaste. Squeeze it out onto the bristles of the toothbrush. Turn on the tap. Place the brush under the water. Turn off the tap, bring the toothbrush to the mouth and brush away at those teeth. Mundane, everyday task right? I thought so too. Turns out that God speaks into the very ordinary moments of life.

Remember your first love.

That was what came to my heart as I looked at myself in the mirror and brushed my teeth. I kept on moving the brush from left to right and back to front, but I could not deny those words that spoke so powerfully to me.

Remember your first love. 

At face value in the culture that we live, that statement could mean to recall the first guy that I thought I had fallen madly in love with. However, I knew that those words meant something much, much more.

Remember your first love. 

God spoke to me in that mundane, ordinary moment to incline my heart to Him. God is love. I am to remember Him and His love for me. I am to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength.

The reason that I am to remember is because, sadly, I am often likely to forget. 

The pressures of life, the busyness of the everyday, the desires to do more, be more, see more people, focus on everything else but God is a daily struggle for me. I have to intentionally, purposefully remember my first love. I must place God above every dream, above every goal, above every thought, above every feeling.

How wonderful it is to know God's love.

God can bring us back to Him through every circumstance. He is patient and kind. He happened to challenge me when I was focusing intently on getting my teeth clean. I must share this quote I saw on the web which made me chuckle and fits in well with this post:

'Prevent truth decay, brush up on Scripture!'

I cannot match the wit of that line, but I will summarise in my own words where we should go from here:

Let us live an intentional and purposeful life, remembering our first love, Jesus Christ, and His love for each of us on the cross, and His power and victory in the resurrection. Amen!

'We love because He first loved us.' 1 John 4:19

Ruth Clemence is a writer and blogger living in South West England. She has written for The War Cry, The Baptist Times, threads and The Herald newspaper in Plymouth. A graduate in Geography with International Relations, she has swapped a map and compass for a pen and notebook to pursue that writer life. When she is not writing, she is either working at the hospital, being sociable somewhere or reading a good book (not necessarily in that order).

Ruth's Blog: www.ruthclemence.com

Ruth's Twitter: @ruth_the_writer