An Undivided Heart

Sunday nights can be rather hectic for us. Especially during the school year. The kids are coming down from the weekend, and then we head to church, many times with friends, which causes more excitement. After getting dinner on our way home, and dropping off the friends, we arrive at our house.

On one or more Sunday nights this is what happens: As I exit the car, I ask my children to gather their things- the artwork and papers from church, and their dinner. More often than not, I have to get all the leftovers in the car as well as the drinks. I walk into the house after my children with my hands full. I cannot see and I trip over the shoes that are left in the middle of the floor right inside the door. A couple of times the drinks have gone flying, other times the stuff in my arms just falls to the floor. I am usually screeching at this point, VERY ready for all my kids to be in bed! A great ending to a Sunday night don't you think? There are many times when I think I would like to tell Todd...."I will preach and you take the kids home and put them to bed"!

I was meditating on the verse in Hebrews 12. Verse one says "....let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us". And I had the picture in my head of me walking into the house with my arms loaded down. These are the thoughts that came along with the picture:

I couldn't see very well with my arms full
I tripped because I wasn't able to see completely
I couldn't see obstacles in my path because my view was obstructed
If I had shared my burden then I wouldn't have had as much trouble
With my arms full, I cannot help someone else carry their burdens
I cannot hug; comfort others

There is a freedom in letting go of things...things of the earth that have no eternal value, things that hinder us from walking Godly lives. There is a freedom in shaking off the sin that so easily entangles, seeking God's help to overcome. In letting go, I can focus on the joy set before me, weighing everything against value and teachings in God's kingdom, I can praise the Holy Father fully because my hands are free to lift high in praise to Him.So much easier when it is a picture in my head. It is very hard to focus on God when we are holding onto so many other things rather than Him.

This concept of me having my arms full and holding on to ‘stuff’ kept bouncing around in my head. Because, if we are holding tight to things, people, etc. than we cannot hold on to Him, and our view is blocked- obstructed and we are more likely to trip. The lesson- to hold loosely(...or not overload your arms anyway..).

We are to hold loosely, while He, being God and all, holds on to us. He is always there just waiting for us to seek Him, You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart I will be found by you," declares the LORD (Jeremiah 29:13-14a).

He is never far from us: "He is the God who made the world. He also made everything in it. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn't live in temples built by hands. He is not served by human hands. He doesn't need anything. He himself gives life and breath to all people. He also gives them everything else they have. From one man he made all the people of the world. Now they live all over the earth. He decided exactly when they should live. And he decided exactly where they should live. God did this so that people would seek him. Then perhaps they would reach out for him and find him. They would find him even though he is not far from any of us (Acts 17:24-27).

I was thinking about the phrase 'hold loosely'. I tried to find it in the Bible and could not. I realized that we use this phrase in the Christian walk based on Abraham's experience in Genesis 22 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2022:1-14&version=31). We see that God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, something Abraham valued, loved, and had waited on for many years. Abraham was faithful and went to follow through with God's commands. In the end, we see God providing another way to satisfy His desire for a sacrifice...but we need to understand that God does not choose to intervene in a crisis of faith. To assume that there is always another provision in the face of a crisis is to limit God’s sustaining grace in our lives. It limits our ability to trust completely if we trust ‘only until we are rescued’.

We are to be willing to hand over everything, allowing no other thing to come before or in the way of following the Almighty God and His commands: Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life Prov. 4:13. Holding loosely...

All my life I have heard this story of Abraham and Isaac. They both had to trust their Fathers completely. When my parents were teaching Sunday School, my father did a drama based on Genesis 22. My little brother was two at the time and was brought in. My dad called him up to the front and asked him to lie down. Grant, fully trusting his father who loved him greatly, went with no hesitation. He lay down and my father held a knife over him...there were many tears and fear over this dramatic picture. But...it was the trust of Grant and the pain in my father's eyes that have stayed with me. My father was hurting even though he knew he wasn't really going to do any harm to Grant.

And I have to ask.... am I willing to hold loosely to my children? To my husband? To my relatively easy life? How much am I willing to let go so that I am holding tightly to the instructions of the Bible? How much do I trust the Father in Heaven? Do I trust that He really will hold on to me?

I do know that we don't know until such a time arrives. Because it is only then that God gives you the strength, and grace, to handle what He has put before you. (Hebrews 4:16) Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

So there is no reason to worry, to anticipate, or to fear. But, we should spend our time on this earthy being open to the movements of God and His Holy Spirit. Learning to love him with an undivided heart- even when it is painful.

Psalm 86:11
Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

My prayer based on this verse:Lord, teach me how you want me to live. Enable to follow your truth. Help me to hide your words in my heart so that when I am tested or burdened, I can recall your Living Word. Give me a heart that doesn't want anything more than to worship you and all that worship involves- my whole heart, my whole spirit, my whole life. And with great trembling, I lay all that I am at your feet.

*NOTE* I wrote this blog right before going to Frontline on Sunday night. As I heard Todd's sermon...I realized that God was working in us both with the same message in different ways. Funny how the Holy Spirit can do that.