Forever and Allways

There's this sticky note on our refrigerator that my little brother wrote.

If you can't read it, it says "ALLWAYS BE HAPPY"

He wrote it one day when someone was in a bad mood. I thought it was really cute - and sweet. :) But it also made me think. I love how he spelled "always": ALLWAYS, with two L's, making it like "all-ways"

Here is a list of the different meanings the word "always" can have.

• Seemingly without interruption
• often and repeatedly
• at any time or in any event
• forever
• throughout all time
• at all times
• all the time and on any occasion
  

When we say "always", do we really mean in all our ways? In every single thing we do? A lot of times we just see it as...well, "always". It has less depth to it the way we use it most of the time.

"I always do it this way!"
"You always are teasing me!"
"I always thought you were afraid of me"

It's another one of those words that are thrown around a lot. Does it bug you that such huge, universal words with such depth are used so flippantly? Love, joy, never, always, Jesus....the list goes on.

But take it with some more depth here.

...giving thanks [always] for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 5:20)

Where "always" is in brackets, read it again, but put in "in all your ways".

giving thanks [in all your ways] for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 5:20)

Always: In all your ways, meaning in whatever situation you encounter - choosing to rejoice, to joy in the Lord (Hab. 3),

Then I thought of another thing. You've probably heard the phrase "forever and always". I always thought it was kind of redundant..."forever and always".

(Let me rabbit trail a bit here and note how I used "always" in that sentence. I did it without even thinking. It's interesting, isn't it?)

But if you change it to "forever and allways", you get something different - not just forever and forever - forever and in every way. We should love God not only in all our ways, in everything we do, but forever. And God loves us and cares for us in the exact same way - forever and allways.