Your Heart is NOT Your Friend!

There came an issue of grief at one point in my life. I did the best I could to override the pain with prayer and reading and quoting comforting Scriptures. As I battled, a simple yet very profound thought came to me that I believe might help others as well. That morning I discovered that my heart is not my friend. Now, I know that sounds strange. But just for a minute, try to follow me in this: my heart wants to remember and feel the pain of child rebellion, my own as well as my children's. My heart almost constantly remembers and feels the pain of widowhood and having been alone for so many years. Always at the wrong moment, my heart slams me with the pain of rejection and betrayal. And we could go on and on. My heart is not my friend. No friend wants you to remain captive and enslaved to painful experiences.

            The question is why? Why do our hearts want to remember and feel such hurt? And the answer is…so it will never happen again! It’s the heart’s defense mechanism, so to speak, to remember everything that went sour in our lives so that we won’t fall into that same trap again. Remember this? Remember that? Remember how it felt? Our hearts don’t want to be hurt anymore, so they throw up walls of protection against being hurt again. We could give these walls names…anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, fear, to mention just a few. These things stand in defense of our hurting hearts, making certain that we “never do that again!” One thing about those walls, though: they may protect the pain that our hearts hold so that we won’t be hurt again, but guess what else they do? They also provide a barrier against God’s blessings and keep them from getting in! This setup that our emotions have developed keeps us focused upon self, and the end result is that we become unable to receive God’s promises and blessings.

            I’m not the only one this happens to. More than likely, you have experienced something similar as well. Later that evening, I received a phone call from a friend who was also going through a hard time. As he spoke, I was praying, asking God for wisdom. When my friend asked, I explained what was happening to him was that his life was being “tilled up” right then. Before you can plant seeds, the soil needs to be prepared. It’s the same with us, especially emotionally. When God is about to bring new things into our lives or head our lives in a new direction, our emotions and thought processes need to be tilled up so we can get rid of the old and replace it with the new. You see, while my heart is not my friend, God is. He’s your friend as well. God does not want us to remain captive to those negative emotions that are so painful. He wants us to live by the grace and power of His Holy Spirit. He wants us to walk (live) by the Spirit, not the flesh. “Walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” He tells us in Romans 8:1-2. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

            God wants us to be more than conquerors. Why? Because as much as He loves us (and it can’t be emphasized enough here that Jesus loves each and every one of us, as individuals), there is something else just as important. There is a common good, or goal, as well. A purpose for being, if you will, which includes many more than just one individual. When we are in pain, it’s that pain we tend to concentrate on. Self becomes our focus. God wants…God needs…me (and you) to get past focusing on self and start focusing on the very important purpose for which He created us in the first place! Whether we realize it or not, God created everyone for a reason. You and I were each created for a purpose, and we have a mission to accomplish. Whatever that mission is for you, it’s an important assignment that no one else on earth can fulfill quite like you can. Focusing on the negative keeps self on the throne. Being stuck on self keeps us far removed from the goal, assignment, and purpose for which God created us. It keeps us far removed from others. The flip side of the coin is that focusing on our purpose for living keeps us focused on others. In focusing on others, our own pain subsides. There is no room left in our hearts for it.

            The greatest spiritual battle ever occurred in the garden of Gethsemane approximately two thousand years ago. On that evening, one Man, Jesus Christ, was on His knees before His Father, asking that this cup (this dreadful horror that Jesus knew He was about to experience) be taken from Him. Jesus didn’t want to suffer any more than we do. But He knew what was happening. He knew the purpose for which He was brought to earth to be born of woman and take on the form and flesh of man. He knew there was a great task at hand—salvation for all mankind—and He knew what had to be done in order to accomplish it. He didn’t want to suffer, but the bottom line for Him was that He wanted His Father’s will to be accomplished more than His own.

            Therein lies the heart of spiritual warfare. Trusting that the Father knows all that’s happening, that He’s in control of it all, and wanting His will to be done even when it doesn’t line up with our own. Even when it seems like the darkness of the night will never give way to the light of the dawn. Because there’s a greater good at stake. Jesus struggled so much with what He knew was coming…the suffering He was to endure…that He shed great drops of blood. Yet he relented. He submitted to His Father’s will. It is because of His great sacrifice that you and I can have times of refreshing. Our greatest spiritual warfare battles will follow in His footsteps. They will not occur on a battlefield; they will take place on our knees. And what will be happening is that we will be overthrowing the reign that self once had over us, so that others can take its place. That’s when we will amazingly discover that the greatest spiritual warfare battles are followed by the greatest times of refreshing. 

These are my thoughts ... what are yours?  

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