Living From Our Hearts
I've grown up learning that my heart was a dangerous place that could not be trusted. The Baptist church that we went to would teach lesson after lesson to elementary kids that our hearts were evil, to be despised as fleshy and untrustworthy. I know there is an aspect of truth to that, but it is not the whole truth.
Jesus longs to know our hearts. Out of the heart are the issues of life. We live out of our heart, so if we are constantly fighting it, fighting our feelings and emotions, then our life will be exhausting and confusing. There's a difference between recognizing that one aspect of something is bad, vs taking that to mean the whole thing is bad.
But with all the good of the heart comes the bad: the confused, swirling feelings that you don't have words for yet, or even the ones you do have words for but leave you feeling tired and weighed down. These are not to be run away from. These are not to stuff down deep in your heart because if you feel anything other than the good things, you are a bad Christian. And now, because you've believed that your heart is a dangerous place where anything other than Holy cannot be allowed, you sit in isolation, even more caught up in the shame and anger at yourself than you were at the original emotion.
Commune with thine own heart - Psalms 4:4. We are told to talk to our hearts, knowing them fully because that is where we encounter and invite the Holy Spirit. He does not enter through logical thinking (though speaking truth and not getting swept up in emotion does have it's place), He enters through the unexplainable moving of the heart. We have to be so unafraid of everything that comes from our heart that we face it as it springs up, making sure that nothing gets plugged up. God isn't worried about anything "evil" that comes from our heart because He has already beaten it.
"Out of the heart are the issues of life." If I am feeling it in my heart, it is an issue of life and needs to be dealt with as such: as something to be valued and carefully thought through, weighed against what is true, but not dismissing it. If I am sad over something silly, I will not refuse to cry because in God there is joy and so clearly I am not being a good Christian. I will sit down, feel the sadness fully, let myself cry while I pray. Did you know you can cry while you pray? You can sing while you sob? You can be in the middle of something confusing, something sad, something less than Holy, but you can still be encircled by the Trinity. God will not withdraw Himself as punishment. He is there if we reach out, no matter how many tears are pooling at our feet.
A heart is like a gun. It is not the thing itself that is inherently evil or malicious, but rather who is wielding it. who have we given our heart to? Love or fear? God or Satan? Both cannot hold the gun and shoot the other effectively. Only one can hold it at a single time. When God is the one wielding us, our heart is the most effective and unfettered place of love that we could ever live from.
For someone who is highly emotional, it felt like a giant weight lifted when the Holy Spirit showed me how important and wanted every single emotion and feeling is (there is a different between important and truthful, but that's another post).
In the end, our heart is precious and MUST be handled with love and grace, because that is how God handles it, so why would we stomp on something that Jesus died to protect?
Jesus longs to know our hearts. Out of the heart are the issues of life. We live out of our heart, so if we are constantly fighting it, fighting our feelings and emotions, then our life will be exhausting and confusing. There's a difference between recognizing that one aspect of something is bad, vs taking that to mean the whole thing is bad.
But with all the good of the heart comes the bad: the confused, swirling feelings that you don't have words for yet, or even the ones you do have words for but leave you feeling tired and weighed down. These are not to be run away from. These are not to stuff down deep in your heart because if you feel anything other than the good things, you are a bad Christian. And now, because you've believed that your heart is a dangerous place where anything other than Holy cannot be allowed, you sit in isolation, even more caught up in the shame and anger at yourself than you were at the original emotion.
Commune with thine own heart - Psalms 4:4. We are told to talk to our hearts, knowing them fully because that is where we encounter and invite the Holy Spirit. He does not enter through logical thinking (though speaking truth and not getting swept up in emotion does have it's place), He enters through the unexplainable moving of the heart. We have to be so unafraid of everything that comes from our heart that we face it as it springs up, making sure that nothing gets plugged up. God isn't worried about anything "evil" that comes from our heart because He has already beaten it.
"Out of the heart are the issues of life." If I am feeling it in my heart, it is an issue of life and needs to be dealt with as such: as something to be valued and carefully thought through, weighed against what is true, but not dismissing it. If I am sad over something silly, I will not refuse to cry because in God there is joy and so clearly I am not being a good Christian. I will sit down, feel the sadness fully, let myself cry while I pray. Did you know you can cry while you pray? You can sing while you sob? You can be in the middle of something confusing, something sad, something less than Holy, but you can still be encircled by the Trinity. God will not withdraw Himself as punishment. He is there if we reach out, no matter how many tears are pooling at our feet.
A heart is like a gun. It is not the thing itself that is inherently evil or malicious, but rather who is wielding it. who have we given our heart to? Love or fear? God or Satan? Both cannot hold the gun and shoot the other effectively. Only one can hold it at a single time. When God is the one wielding us, our heart is the most effective and unfettered place of love that we could ever live from.
For someone who is highly emotional, it felt like a giant weight lifted when the Holy Spirit showed me how important and wanted every single emotion and feeling is (there is a different between important and truthful, but that's another post).
In the end, our heart is precious and MUST be handled with love and grace, because that is how God handles it, so why would we stomp on something that Jesus died to protect?
Important note: Jesus did not die to protect our heart. He died to pay for our sins, so that we could freely accept the gift of salvation. It is what brought Him to the cross, His love for us, that inspires His desire to protect our hearts.
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