Heart Surgery

This morning, Caleb informed me, "I was in a good mood until I woke up."

I know how he feels.

Sometimes, it takes everything within in us to swing our feet over the side of the bed and trek into the bathroom to start getting ready.

Sometimes, it's easier to pull the covers up over our heads and hide. 

Sometimes, as soon as we open our eyes, it is all there... all the ugly negativity and junk we bring on ourselves.

When a person has a sick heart, like after they've had a heart attack or when they have congestive heart failure, one of the symptoms is shortness of breath and fatigue, because the heart can't pump effectively to circulate blood throughout their bodies... oxygenated blood that tissues need to stay alive.

They are tired. Want to stay in bed. Can barely put one foot in front of the other.

And it is the same way when our hearts are sin-sick.  We don't have energy, don't have passion, just want to hide away and leave things the way they've always been.

Being comfortable is easy. 

Today my pastor spoke about being unconcerned with the condition of the world, being unconcerned with the condition of our hearts.  He talked about how Jesus was compassionate for others, and we should be, too... we should be concerned and love like Jesus. 

Too often, though, our hearts just aren't in the shape to love.  Dirty with selfish ambitions and pride and bitterness and anger, sooty with all of this sin, even as we sing our worship songs and declare that Jesus is Lord...

Tonight, I read the next to last lesson in David: A Heart Like His.  In order to have a heart like God's we have to give it up to Him.  That's not easy.  We have to bend our knees and bow our head and recognize that maybe we don't have all the answers. Recognize that we are always in need of grace and that means that other people are, too.  We have to be willing to praise, even when we don't feel like it, and to step away from our comfort zone.

And I realized that my heart needed a little bit of work... because sin is sin and pride and unforgiveness both classify as just that.  I can't truly embrace His purpose for me if I'm not filled up with Him, and I can't be filled up with Him if I'm full of my own bitterness, even if I cover it up with a smile on my face.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I'm wrapping up one study and getting ready to move into A Confident Heart by Renee Swope.  I've read the book once before, and I think God has big plans for this study... for my heart.  I just have to let Him wash it and make it pure.  I have to embrace whatever He has planned for me and recognize that His heart is only good, and His plans for me can only be good because of that.

And then I logged on facebook and scrolled through my newsfeed, and this verse that a friend had posted jumped off the screen at me. "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."(NIV) Proverbs 4:23

So tonight I'm thanking God that He does heart surgery... and that His grace is sufficient.