messy heart.

When I was little, my mom said she would find me with my cheeks stuffed full of cheerios two or three hours after she’d fed them to me. I would pretend to eat the food, but really would just harbor them inside my cheeks for later. Just in case. She laughed because never had she given me a reason to believe I wouldn’t be fed. I’m not sure if in my little diva toddler head I thought had to stock up for self-preservation, or if I was just weird and liked soggy cheerios filling my mouth all the time. Regardless, I’ve been feeling a little like this lately. Like I’m frantically trying to fill myself up with good feelings, good deeds, attention, time with people I love… as if I expect it to be suddenly ripped from me or something. I realized I have a small view of God. For example, I have often secretly felt that my relationship with my boyfriend Caleb is too much fun for God to bless it. Too many times I have thought, “ok, I like him way too much. When is this gonna suddenly end.” Truth is, God can end my relationships whenever He wants, but I should not be walking around thinking that God doesn’t want me to enjoy my relationships. As though the man God has for my life will be someone stuffy and serious who is like a walking, talking correction of everything ungodly about me. How silly it is to claim that I am a redeemed daughter of Christ but then to feel as though what God really wants is to take the things I find joy in. This is terribly and completely untrue. And deep down in the most honest parts of me, I know it’s untrue. I know that God delights when His children are happy, and that He loves to give good gifts to those who trust in Him. It even says this in His word. (matthew 7:9-11) However, in the daily strivings and yearnings of my heart, I often forget that Jesus delights in me. Now let me be clear, I’m not a follower of the prosperity gospel—I don’t think that Jesus gives us whatever we want, because He doesn’t. He’s entirely too loving for that. He gives us what we NEED. He gives us challenges and opportunities to grow and develop greater spiritual endurance so that we may be shining lights of His Glory and Power. In knowing Him comes a peace that whatever comes from His hand is going to be for my good.  That is what I have forgotten lately.

I have slowly been tricked into believing that the maintenance and growth of my faith is MY responsibility. I have unfortunately so often stopped looking towards the cross and have begun to look to my own workings to verify and affirm that I do indeed live my life for Christ. I believe that it is in this kind of self-absorbed religion that Satan is totally content with us reading our Bibles and being involved in people’s lives in the name of Christ. If the Devil knows that I am slaving over good deeds to make myself feel better, he’s totally pleased with every “good” thing I do. My pastor Dean spoke on this recently, and said that if you are trying to make yourself better, you are inevitably getting worse. When he described the attitudes of people who are stuck in this trap, he used the words “paranoid” and “morbidly introspective.” Yikes. How completely opposite has my behavior been to that which Jesus commands. Scripture says, “fix your thoughts on Jesus” (Hebrews 3:1) and again in Hebrews 12: “let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.”

In Galatians 3:2-3, Scripture says, “I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”  God wants me to walk in childlike faith, trusting Him to provide for my needs and to grow me and train me in His love and mercy. He doesn’t want me to live like the chipmunk-child I used to be, with a constant fear that I have to stock up on what I think I need in case He decides to ditch me. That’s not love. “Perfect love casts out fear.”

I can’t provide for myself everything I need, let alone anything I need. My salvation is not up to me to earn, not up to me to keep, not up to me to maintain, not up to me to grow. Jesus knows what to do with my heart. And if I never fully surrender it to Him, I will be that paranoid, neurotic girl I’ve been lately. If I live in constant fear that God is gonna take from me what I most deeply desire, than I cannot say that I know Him. And if I do claim to know Him, which I can say only by the grace of Jesus, than I should always be fixing my eyes on what He did and is constantly doing, which is saving me from myself.

 and here’s a gratuitous pic of the chipmunk.