Making our Hearts Whole

I've been thinking a little bit about destiny and how as a general rule most people don't think about destiny or where they are headed. We think about our immediate need and we want that immediate need satisfied. Maybe it's a survival mechanism or maybe it's just human nature. Anyway, I was thinking about how when we don't pay attention to where God is leading us it's so easy to get off track. And, how quickly we assume that when something bad happens that we must be off track. What if that's actually part of the road to our destiny? What if the bad choices we make or the mistakes we wish we hadn't made are actually part of what God intended to help us get to where He wants us to be. I'm not suggesting that absolves us from taking responsibility for our actions but what I am saying is that even though things happen that we wouldn't necessarily choose, they are part of us, part of our story and part of how God will move in our hearts.

Jesus states in Isaiah 61, "He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners." He binds us up, releases us from captivity and shines His light on those things we keep hidden. It takes an act of our will to choose to allow Him to keep us on track, and to allow Him to touch those parts in us we wish we could ignore.

George MacDonald prayed, “Gather my broken fragments to a whole . . . Let mine be a merry, all-receiving heart, but make it a whole, with light in every part.” But you can’t do this at a distance; you can’t ask Christ to come into your wound while you remain far from it. You have to go there with him. (Wild at Heart , 128–29)

Sure our immediate needs will be satisfied because we are good at figuring out how to do that in our own strength, but if we really want our hearts to be whole, we have to allow Jesus to bind up our broken hearts, we have to be willing to let him in to our darkness and we have to go there with Him. His light shines into the weeds that have grown up around the tombstones in my heart that I gingerly navigate around. His pure light helps me see the weeds, gives me the ability to cut them down and beckons me to open the lid on each tomb so that His light can fill up the darkness that has been hidden there. Once the tomb is filled with light, it disappears taking away the burden and replaces it with a permanent imprint on my heart; a sign that says "Jesus Was Here".