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The heart is the all-important organ in your body, you can live without a hand, an eye, a breast, even a kidney or lung but you can not live without your heart! The heart is the center of life, it tells me, on some level, everything I need to know about the rest of me.  The condition of my heart impacts everything else about me and not just on the physical level, this is a spiritual principle as well.  Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”  Or another translation says, “…for from it flows the issues of life.”

The heart!

The source of my existence, my wellbeing, my very life.

When postured and surrendered it can be such a blessing but when held in the embrace of selfishness, bitterness, rejection, hatred, fear, judgement it is most definitely compromised. I wanted to write “a curse” – the opposite of a blessing – but paused because I don’t believe that!  I do believe it can become a curse if left unchecked and undealt with but the human heart is a messy thing.

Luke 17:1 Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come.”

Psalm 142:6 “Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low! Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me!”

Psalm 58:6-8 “Break off their fangs, O God! Smash the jaws of these lions, O LordMay they disappear like water into thirsty ground. Make their weapons useless in their hands. May they be like snails that dissolve into slime, like a stillborn child who will never see the sun.”

Ruth 1:20 “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.”

God’s Word is full of the honest of accounts of men and women offended, bitter, and angry at the injustice and cruelty of others.  The ugliness of hearts on display – God doesn’t hide this condition of the men and women known to love and chase after Him.  He is faithful to give clear examples of the how this world can affect us, change us, soil us, challenge us.

Hearts broken by the choices and selfishness of others,

hearts despairing from the corruption of a fallen world,

hearts damaged by rejection and thoughtless words,

hearts hardened to protect and guard from suffering,

hearts burning with vengeance at the injustice displayed.

The heart is a messy thing!

And God is not afraid of the mess.

With hands opened, He invites you to bring your messed up heart to Him.

He is the greatest of heart surgeons and knows the precise tools to use to piece it back together, He knows just what needs to be cut out and replaced, He knows exactly how to wash it and bind it for the healing that is needed.

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And like any good doctor, He knows it all takes time.       Healing takes time!

And He is ever patient to sit by your hospital bed as your heart is on the mend, adjusting the “meds” you need to process through the pain, offering advice to encourage and bring hope for full recovery, stepping in when needed to prescribe new orders and procedures to keep healing on track.

He is ever faithful to predict the needs of your reconciling heart.

Ezekiel 36:26 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.  I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

A new heart! Yes, that’s what I need, a new heart! One filled with promise and forgiveness and grace and acceptance and mercy and patience and joy and all good things of God.

[pictures.4ever.eu] heart of stone rocks 157452A heart surrendered.

It does a body good.