Take Note of What’s in Your Heart

How’s your heart?  This is a question that I ask myself when I feel a bit thin.  I think Tolkien described it well…

“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

I begin to write down what’s in my heart. How is it doing?  My heart speaks words like: tired, but hopeful…open, but hesitant…determined, but distracted…ready, but waiting.  I wonder am I always going to have this feeling of balancing on a line? The line that keeps me teetering between letting go, living abundantly and just maintaining.  I have always struggled with walking this line; maybe we all do. Why is motivation a struggle? Why is fixing our perspective a daily occurrence? One that we must tend to and take care of like a garden.

I do not garden.  I could maybe if I tried really hard, but it’s not my thing. I have family members that are amazing at it. They can grow anything! For me, my abilities to garden or not garden add needed humor to my life. I usually imagine that it’s me versus the vegetation. I over-water, under-water, forget-to-water, plant too early, plant too late, and then there was the time my tomato plant hurled itself off the deck in an attempt to get away from its soon to be demise (I know it was the wind, but it’s more fun to think of it the way I described it). It’s no surprise to me that motivation, perspective, guarding our hearts is something we must do daily, but it is something that I forget to do. Just like gardening, taking care of my inner life is something I could do if I really tried, but I don’t do it as much as I should.

Why don’t I.  That’s a question that naturally comes to mind next.  I continue to search my heart making notes of what I find…my “heart notes”.  I look for patterns that I see in my own life right now? Why is it so hard to find the motivation I need? Why can’t I just do what I know is right? Why do I struggle like Paul did? God brings to mind the passage in Romans where Paul shares his struggle…

Romans 7:15-20 (ESV)
15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

I love this passage because it so creatively puts into words the inner struggle that we all face.  The play on words that Paul uses is in itself difficult to even read…”for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…now if I do what I do not want”…you get the idea.  As I carefully look at these words of Paul, they resonate with me because I struggle with teetering on what I call “the line”.  The struggle of doing what I don’t want to do and not doing what I think I should.  I am encouraged by this passage in Romans because I know I am not alone. Paul gets it. He saw the struggle and addressed it. We are in a battle. We battle against the sin that dwells in us.

I begin to find motivation in the idea of the battle…it’s hard…it’s frustrating…it’s tiring, but it’s worth it.   Because I know who wins in the end, and isn’t that like most things that are worthwhile in life: they are the hard things…the hard choices…getting up when you don’t want to…learning from mistakes…doing what’s right because it’s right.  It is hard to maintain your inner life.  It’s can be unpleasant at times and we see God chisel away at the parts that don’t glorify him.  Yet, when I spend the time to fix my perspective, check my motivation, taking note of my hearts condition it leads me back to the truths I believe, and I believe, like Paul, that we are in a battle.

Now if I stopped there and focused just on the battle that we face it would be discouraging, but I also believe that the battle we face leads me to a promised victory. When I am reminded of the victory that is promised, I think of the love that is lavished upon us and the redemption story that plays out in my own life.  It is then, I find my perspective changes and shifts, and suddenly the idea of walking this line between the struggle and the abundant life…the battle and the predicted victory is not as frustrating as it once was. Challenging, but not frustrating…hard, but worthwhile…and I am struck by the feeling that my heart’s condition is beginning to change.

I decide to ask again how’s my heart? Things have changed…I am excited…I am hopeful…I am encouraged…I feel gratitude and love in my heart. I am no longer focused on the line, but just enjoying the fact that I get to walk it and I know where it takes me…and the journey is part of it.  The song “greater” by Mercy Me comes to mind. “There’ll be days I lose the battle.  Grace says that it doesn’t matter.  ‘Cause the cross already won the war.”

The struggle, the tension, the feeling of walking the line, and that we are just about to achieve something, on the verge of getting it, but not quite there.  I think is something that maybe won’t go away until we are in heaven it is our connection with eternity…the reminder that this isn’t the end…the struggle will one day cease, but until then find joy in the struggle let it be a reminder of what is to come and…the war that’s already been won.

Our perspective, our outlook, how we see the line we walk, is a lot like a garden that we must tend to. We not probably should, but should know what it needs to grow and produce life. I took time to look at my heart today. To see what it needs, what it was lacking, and was reminded of the battle I am facing, not like the one I create in my head against my defenseless vegetation, but a real battle against sin that is not defenseless at all. I am reminded that we need to guard our hearts. Tend to them. Prepare them for the elements of life. So even though I am not very good at gardening I am learning to be better at “guardening” my heart…the daily maintenance, nurturing and care that we need to do on our inner life to fix our perspective, our focus, our eyes back on Jesus…because when we do that the line we felt we were teetering on becomes the line we can “run freely” on.

What’s in your heart?

Use my Heart Notes template to do some “guardening” on your inner life, and check out “Greater” by Mercy Me if you haven’t heard it yet!

I’m Picking Up What You’re Putting Down

I love the phrase, “I’m picking up what you’re putting down” there are so many thoughts that it brings to mind. As I was reading the daily Bible passages assigned for the day, it included Luke 9 where Jesus says that we must pick up our cross daily. I thought about how we were not meant to carry our cross alone. God designed us to have an abundant life, one that is fully alive. Part of that abundant, fully alive life includes the reality that we would be going through this life together not only with Him, but with other followers of Him, and with those that have yet to meet Him. So with the phrase, “I’m picking up what you’re putting down” is the idea that we are not alone. When someone’s burden is too heavy I can help. I can pick up what they put down. That got me thinking about more ways this phrase can be used.

As a mom, I can say that I am quite literally picking up what my kids are putting down all day, but then as I thought about the attitude that I have sometimes when I am picking up after my kids I realized that I am also putting things down for others to pick up. When I snap at my husband, slam a cupboard door a little harder than I should (I guess I probably shouldn’t be slamming cupboard doors to begin with…it doesn’t really matter how hard I do it), say something that I know I shouldn’t and when I take extra time to text a friend, hug my kids, or turn off the television, I am putting something down that those around me might pick up. So I need to be mindful that what I am putting down can either help or hurt. It can be a truth or a lie.  It can lighten someone’s load or increase it.  It can teach people about the God that I know and love or it can leave people wondering if I know God at all.

The whole verse in Luke 9:23 says, “And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” The idea of denying myself means there may be times I have to put down all the things I am carrying in order to pick up what Jesus is asking me to pick up. Each day I have hundreds of little and sometimes big decisions that require me to be mindful of what I am currently carrying that I need to put down, what someone else has just knowingly or unknowingly laid in front of me and whether it’s something I need to pick up or leave alone.

I don’t know about you, but I always think I can carry or “pick up” more than I can or should?   For example, I usually try to carry in too many groceries from the car.  As soon as I turn off the car after pulling into the driveway, I begin a real life version of Tetris; where if I put the bags in my arms in just the right way I can clear a whole row of groceries from the car.  Then if I do make it to the front door I usually find myself “jumping barrels” like the little man in Donkey Kong all while balancing my “oh so cleverly” stacked load. With victory in sight, just when I think I’ve done it…my husband appears asking if he can help.  Does he not know that I just played a round of Tetris and Donkey Kong just to get to this point and now the art of trying to pass off the groceries in a way that doesn’t take down my whole elaborate stack is more than my “mom brain” can handle…and then I’ve really done it. I’ve just put down something he will pick up that I didn’t plan on. Something I will have to help him put down later when I apologize and seek his forgiveness, and I have left him wondering why I am so stressed and not more appreciative of his offer. It was just groceries right.  The problem is that I do this same kind of thing with other areas in my life. I say yes when I should say no.  I allow what I am doing to have more weight than who I am being.  I struggle as I attempt to keep all the balls of life in the air and then when one falls I feel like I a failure.  I don’t like to fail, who does right?

Then there are times when we have been called on to carry things that God never designed us to have to carry, but because of sin we carry it with us, something that we ultimately need Jesus to carry for us. Things like pain, sin, sickness and death. Putting down a loved ones hand after we have said our final goodbye, picking up a loved ones things for the last time after they have passed away, carrying each other as we learn to deal with grief and loss.  Those are things God did not want us to ever have to pick up, put down or carry with us, but Adam and Eve chose to pick up the fruit and then Jesus chose to pick up His cross. So until Jesus returns, we do what we need or are called on to do. We pick up what He calls us to pick up. We put down what we hope will lead people to the truth. We carry too much and go through the process of learning how to let others carry our load for us, and we wait. We wait for the day…when Jesus will pick us up and carry us to God…having taken out of our hands…and forever “putting down”…the sin, death and evil that is in this world so that we never have to carry it’s burden again.
Are you picking up what I’m putting down?