What's in your heart?

No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. (I Corinthians 2:11-12)

A person's heart is a treasury of dreams and imagination, but it is also a harborer of doubts, fears, and failures, isn't it? We might hold onto certain dreams, hoping for their fulfillment, all the while investing a great deal of our heart's energy and attention into seeing those dreams through to fruition. We also hold onto certain failures, hurts, and habits that our heart seems to wrap much emotional energy around that could be spent pursuing better things. God knows what is contained within our hearts - the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly. Isn't it a wise choice to ask him to sort out what is in our heart, revealing what should be kept and nurtured, while letting go of what only results in emotional upheaval and mistrust?

We have received God's Spirit, so we need to allow his Spirit to reveal to us where it is we are holding onto things that we need to clearly be rid of. God's heartbeat can be felt within our spirit, but the more we allow this world's spirit of fear, doubt, and destructive thoughts inhabit the precious space within our heart, we won't hear his heartbeat as well as we should. Our emotions are a mess because we allow things from this world to enter in, take root, and produce fruit that is bitter and of no use to us. The spirit of this world isn't going to bring all kinds of 'warm fuzzies' into our mind, emotions, or spirit. In fact, it will work overtime to do just the opposite!

We might not even know our own thoughts very well, since they are so up and down all the time. When we are ruled by our emotions, we find the ride is quite bumpy. We don't have stability, finding ourselves making wise choices at times, then listening to some fear or doubt planted by this world's spirit within our hearts, and losing all perspective of God's grace, goodness, and protection. We need to 'shut out' this world's spirit. How? We connect with God, maintain that connection, finding our source of life in nothing other than his presence. The thing we connect with the most makes all the difference in what our heart is filled with, my friends. Just sayin!

Breaking that emotional bond

A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.

(Richard Whately)

Forget about the wrong things people do to you. Don’t try to get even. Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18)

Most of us can easily recall the last meal we prepared or purchased for ourselves. Many can recount the nice gifts they received on their birthday or anniversary. Others will bring to memory the nice things said about them at a celebration in their honor. How many of us can remember the last 'bad thing' done to us or said about us? God tells us to forget about the wrong things people do to us, but for some reason we hold onto those memories quite easily. 

We might want to let go of whatever it is that has been 'done wrong' against us, but whenever we try to let go, we find ourselves drifting backward into our memory of the emotions attached to that 'event'. Maybe the amount of emotion attached to the event plays a part in how 'memorable' it is. Let me learn to cook some gourmet dish from scratch and I bet there is a certain set of emotions that make that moment in time memorable. Let me get in a car crash, complete with screeching tires and crumbling metal and I bet the emotions attached to that event leave a lasting impression.

If emotions play such a huge part in how we 'form' and 'hold onto' certain memories, maybe the way for us to let go of the 'wrong things done to us' is to ask God to help us 'interrupt' the emotional triggers that send us down the pathway to that bad memory. It could just be as God breaks the 'emotional bond' behind that emotion that we finally begin to realize our 'neighbor' needs our forgiveness as much as we need to let go of whatever it is we are holding onto. Instead of being 'triggered' by the emotions to recount the 'bad memory' time and time again, we might just find God has us pray for our neighbors! 

We aren't going to 'get over' a bad memory as long as we keep nursing the 'emotional trigger' that stirs up all those negative feelings once again. Maybe we can be truly free of those emotional bonds God's intervention, but until we ask, we will never know. Just sayin!

Happy?

Do what God’s teaching says; when you only listen and do nothing, you are fooling yourselves. Those who hear God’s teaching and do nothing are like people who look at themselves in a mirror. They see their faces and then go away and quickly forget what they looked like. But the truly happy people are those who carefully study God’s perfect law that makes people free, and they continue to study it. They do not forget what they heard, but they obey what God’s teaching says. Those who do this will be made happy. (James 1:22-25)

How many times did you have to be told something as a kid? Mom would ask me to do something, and I might not want to do it, but if I didn't act upon it the first time she asked, there was no asking a second time! Some of you know exactly what I mean. Obedience was expected, the first time, without hesitation. Is it to be any different with God? There are times he asks for us to do something very specifically, but we hesitate. Why is that? It could be that we think the thing he requires of us is just a bit too hard - like consistently reading the Word each day or beginning to tithe faithfully. I have found that when we finally do take the steps of obedience he requires, what we feared the most about taking those steps wasn't really all that bad. Obedience doesn't have to be 'burdensome' or 'harder than we'd like' - it can actually be quite rewarding.

If we examine our passage closely, we will observe there is a state of emotional well-being that is the result of obedience. Doing what God asks results in freedom - freedom brings a sense of emotional 'happiness' that we might just be missing out on if we are dragging our feet about something God is asking for us to do. One might think they could ignore God's requests, but there is a definite 'rub' that comes when there is indifference to his teachings. When we actually allow his teachings to permeate our minds, our will begins to change and that actually affects our emotional status. If we are a bit too 'on edge', angry all the time, disappointed in ourselves or others almost continually, we might do well to ask God if there is some area of our life that he has asked for obedience in and we haven't responded to that request.

Obedience isn't optional, but it is up to us to actually take those steps toward whatever it is God is asking of us. We might not believe 'freedom' or 'emotional well-being' will be the result of our steps, but when those steps are taken because God asks them of us, the end result will be good. Just sayin!