My Hard Heart

As I have been watching the news on Haiti this week, I am struck with the numbness of my heart. How can I watch the images on TV, then five minutes later be laughing uncontrollably about something my two year old did? How can I reach for that second cookie while watching a report on the lack of food and water? How can I go most the day without giving this catastrophe a second thought? I don't want this to be the case, and yet I am sorry to say that it is. I want my heart to be broken by the things that break God's heart. I want my heart to be burdened for the things that burden Him. I don't want the comforts of my own life to make me numb and insensitive to the extreme poverty in which so much of the world is living.

I know if we ask God to make our heart like His, He will answer. He wants to answer this prayer request more than anything! He longs for this! However, I think the area where I so often fall short is the area of obedience. He asks me to do something in that very still, small voice of His, yet I just brush it aside. I choose to make my day about what I want rather than want He wants. Oh, how difficult it is to truly learn to walk in His Spirit! In our world that is full of cell phones, instant messaging, twittering, emailing, facebooking, I can find myself in a constant buzz of communication yet not in communion with the One whom matters. All of these communication tools can become substitutions, if we are not careful. They slowly and steadily draw you away from the still, small voice saying, 'this is the Way. Walk in it.'

It really comes down to one word. Intentionality. We have to be overly intentional about staying on God's path. Because if we aren't intentionally focused, we are sidetracked by the smallest of things. We have to draw some boundaries and disciplines in our lives that keep us from getting sucked into all the entertainment at our fingertips. We have to be mindful of 'whether we turn to the right or to the left, our ears will hear a voice behind us, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."
Isaiah 30:20-

God can and will give us a heart like His. Before He can do that, however, our hearts have to be purged of the things of this world so that the space can be freely occupied by Him and Him alone. And we have to be willing to not just be hearers of His Word, but then Doers.

Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23


My life is not my own! I have been bought with a price!

My job? Your job? LIVE IT OUT.


1But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. 2 Timothy 3:1-5