Nothing has changed, and it never will in any hugely noticeable way: God's grace and love will always be amazing, and my sin will always be discouraging. However, God's grace will never stop flowing, and never stop giving. I'm like a baby bird, with an open mouth always discharging sin and taking in God's love. Sometimes my shame will force me to close my "mouth," but God's love will pry it open again, reminding me of my absolute need for Him.

And then our love for the things of the world can take over sometimes, and God gets put on the back-burner. We start to pursue our horizontal love, our our love towards people, and our vertical love is forgotten, or ignored. We choose not to let God direct us, and we wander. And we wander, through trials and difficulty, through life, through hardship. Until God steps back into our life again...and we see God. He can't stand the people and idols we replace Him with, so He inserts Himself back into our conscious circle, and shakes us awake.