Matters of the Heart...

When I was in high school, I asked God to help me make a huge change in my life. I asked God to soften my heart. I remember being involved in the children's ministry at my church and I remember watching our children's minister working with the kids and I remember her crying a lot! She would always say that was just the way God made her and at the time I didn't understand why she would cry when someone got baptized or when she would talk about certain topics surrounding God. Showing such an outward display of emotions was foreign to me. I didn't understand it so I asked God to soften my heart so that I could understand and see some of the world as she sees it. I knew she understood something and knew something that I did not yet know.

Since then, God has softened my heart in many ways and He has put people in my life that teach me more and more about God, compassion, selflessness, and love. This softening process is taking a lot of time. This process has been more about moving from my mind to matters of the heart. As one of the ministers at my church said on Sunday, "The heart has reason that the reason of the mind doesn't understand". My rational logical realistic mind often tries to take over the matters of my heart, but my mind can't fully understand the reasons of my heart. It doesn't understand why I feel compassion or love for someone who makes the same mistakes over and over again or why I keep praying for that person. My mind doesn't understand why I long for something or someone I have never seen.

The heart is a mysterious and precious thing.

Proverbs 4:23 says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it".

Be cautious though not to close your heart off so much that it becomes hard. Soften your heart, allow God to transform it, and He will help you guard it. Remember He has your best interest at heart.

Psalm 37:4-5a, "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn.."