The Heart

by | Nov 8, 2012 | Uncategorized | 2 comments

It’s amazing what breaks my heart these days.

I used to be crushed by someone not liking me or a sad Hallmark commercial. A few years and a little bit of maturity has grown my spirit to look outside of myself.  Of course, I’m still very selfish (I think I’ve made this clear in past posts), but God has thankfully widened my view to see the struggle of others around me.

There is no doubt in my mind that God is working on me day in and day out.  And it all starts with my HEART.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

In fact, God has already broken my heart to an extent that I finally see that I am not doing Him any favors by following Him.  Huh.

I started thinking about this statement after reading a devotional from Sharon Jaynes this morning on having life abundantly (See John 10:10).  She went on to quote C.S. Lewis and his comment on Christians lacking merriment.  She also included the following Lewis quote, which hits my HEART point today.

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”(C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperCollins, 1949, 1976, revised 1980), 26.)

Did you notice the description ‘half-hearted’?  I sure did!  And it describes me on most days.

My head tells me to take the easy route, hang with the crowd and please the people.  My heart tells me to expect so much more than the world offers…thus, I’m usually stuck at half-hearted.

This is not good enough for me, nor is it a place I would like to stay.  I want MORE.  I want to be broken-hearted to the point where God fills the void instead of me stuffing myself with the pleasures of the world and never reaching fulfillment.

I know, I know…it doesn’t seem to make sense to want to be broken-hearted.  However, I need to be broken and repaired by GOD because I don’t want to be half-hearted.  Whole-hearted for God is my goal!  (Yep, it’s gonna take my entire life to get there and that’s OK!)

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:17

According to my The Journey NIV Bible, in this Psalm, King David was pledging himself to a life of service a year after committing adultery and murder.  In addition, David was trying to show others the benefits of living in harmony with God whole-heartedly instead of fighting Him constantly.

I see four neon signs in this Psalm.

  1. FORGIVENESS – God will forgive the worst of the worst.  WHEW!  Thank you, God!
  2. LOVE – God loves us so much He is willing to forgive us even though we don’t deserve it.
  3. FULLFILLMENT – Our choice to follow God fulfills OUR lives (no favors for God there).
  4. SERVICE – Helping others essentially gives us a joyful life full of MERRIMENT!  It really IS better to give than receive!!

Don’t you just love how God works?  I sure do.  He teaches me something every time I turn around and I continue to be amazed that the God of our universe cares about little ole’ ME!

The great news is God loves US ALL!!!!

I dare you to spread a little cheer, joy and merriment today…whole-heartedly!

Some Wisdom for Today:  Proverbs 4:23 – Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

2 Comments

  1. Jason

    We should all be saying “Lord, break my heart for what breaks yours!” This flesh does not naturally want to make His will, my will. Daily, we should re-commit ourselves to His will with our whole-hearts! Thanks for the encouragement!

    Reply
    • meghays

      Absolutely! Totally forgot about that song when I was writing this!!!

      Reply

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