See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.
Hebrews 3:12-13
It's the tale tell sign.It's when I know my heart is starting to wander a bit. When my focus is skewed. When my walk is meandering.
It's how I know.
It's when I get a little brittle, a little stony.
My heart is no longer a soft place to land.
I confuse it sometimes for strength. I say that I'm tough, that I can weather the storm. I jut out the rigid chin of my soul and bask in my independence.
But it's not rugged strength.
It's the dense deceitfulness of sin, posing as autonomy, faking fortitude.
I sometimes allow that wall of weakness to be raised, a self-constructed attempt to buffer the jabs and jousts this world brings against the softness of the soul. I see through worldly eyes the challenges, the pain, the questions, the doubt. And in allowing that vision to form, the deception, the duplicity begins to harden my heart.
And I wade in again to a sea of self-protection, an attempt to keep the difficult, the messy, the confusing compartmentalized into an illusion of control.
The opposite of faith.
A deceitfulness of sin.
The sin of hanging on to illusions of self-determination. The sin of trying to manipulate God through behavior, self-righteousness, point systems. The sin of keeping up appearances instead of looking for His appearing.
The chicanery of command.
But my given mandate is to remain tender. To see the hurts of this world and to allow it to soak into the plowed furrows of my heart. To hear the cries of a fallen world and to let it become the discordant symphony that motivates me, moves me. To walk the battlefields of the war for eternity and to tend the wounded, the lost, the weary.
To be moved by the very things that moved Jesus to the cross.
To be moved to tears by the very things that that became His heart's cry.
To remain tender in a hard world.
A soft place for the wounded to land.
The extraordinary cushion of the softness of the saved soul.
Selah.
Hi! I just wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog!! :) God has obviously blessed you in the writing dept!! ;) God bless you!
ReplyDeleteHi there, I just spent a delightful half hour catching up on a weeks worth of your posts.
ReplyDeleteLove the sibling rivalry post. Let me guess, the instigator is a third child? Oy, the needs of a third child. Love your coping methods. We have so many boys dreaming of knights and dragons that we've come to think of sibling rivalry as sibling revelry.
I've been helping a sweet girl in our congregation care for her twin girls. Adorable, but I just don't know how you handle more then one, even with teenagers.
Your soft souled approach to life inspires me!
Love Ya!
If you haven't read the Giver, you should. It is a similar concept, where everyone has lost the ability to feel real emotion...everyone except the Giver. It has become his "burden" to take on all the pain and hurts and joys of his society. If you haven't read it, do. I never connected it to this verse until today. Thanks for reminding us to stay tenderhearted.
ReplyDeleteWow. very powerful words today.
ReplyDeleteI know i saw it each time I read your Sunday Selah, but each week, you seem to choose the perfect subject for my heart and you always speak to me in such large volumes that I can't help but be moved.
Thank you & many blessings to your beautiful family this Sunday and always.
Debi
Thank you for sharing this. We all have a wandering heart at times, I believe, and a skewed focus like you said. I think it is always a matter of prayer, and doing what we can to stay close to God so that we won't "be hardened by sin's deceitfulness." It's not always easy though!
ReplyDeleteI was wondering whether you have ever written a post explaining why you chose the word Selah. I realize it is in Proverbs, but I'm just curious if there was something that enlightened you and if Selah is something special in your mind and heart? (If you have written a post, I would love the link.)
That was beautifully written. When do you find the time?
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a lovely Sunday!
What a wonderful post- exactly what I needed today and straight from the Father, I'm sure. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHope you have a blessed week!
In Him,
E
I just happen to stumble upon your post and what a powerful post it was....In today's world..it's so easy to make compromises...but sometimes those compromise aren't as rewarding as we try to convince ourselves they are...
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for that post! Much needed to hear!
"To walk the battlefields of the war for eternity and to tend the wounded, the lost, the weary.
ReplyDeleteTo be moved by the very things that moved Jesus to the cross."
Yes! If we're not moved to action by the pain of this hurting world, we're missing the point. To abide in "The sin of trying to manipulate God through behavior, self-righteousness, point systems." It's so tempting to do that. But so fruitless.