“Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.”
I think
most of us learn to live this way for a young age. A harsh teacher called life
gives most of us lessons on disappointment, hurt, and betrayal from the time we’re
little. Once adults, there are even labels for those who don’t learn to guard
themselves well. We call these vulnerable people “gullible” and “naïve.”
To keep
our hearts safe, we put up walls. There’s a door you can enter with permission –that’s
where loved ones get in to hear secrets and become knit together with us.
Unfortunately,
God often doesn’t get permission to pass through that door.
Of all
beings who can disappoint us, hurt us, and betray us, God –being all powerful
as He is- is at the top of the list. Being a black and white ruler, an eternal
judge, and the one who condemns, God is one to be weary of.
From our
place of fear, disappointment, resentment, bitterness, and more in the fortress
of our hearts, we think it’s better to keep that kind of God distant.
There
are more reasons for guarding our hearts against God.
On the
days we feel guilty, unworthy, flawed, and insufficient, we believe it’s better
for God to be on the outside. Keep that grace and love and mercy that we feel
we don’t deserve far away, and guard the mess that’s in our hearts. It’s easier
than the chaos and hurt that comes when our hearts get cleaned up.
Praise
the Lord that He breaks down the door.
Praise
the Lord that the prayer we’re taught in Psalm 51:10 reads:
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
The
prayer isn’t “thank you God that I’ve got a clean heart.” These aren’t words we
say when all is well and our hearts are tidy and safe.
This is
an invitation for God to open the door to the heart –pushing past all that mess
and all our fortifications- to get to work. And it isn’t easy work.
To get
clean, things have to get taken out of place and put back in right order. Some
things have to get thrown out completely, others thoroughly scrubbed. Secret
piles have to be exposed.
In all this, notice that “O God” is
the one cleaning: you and I have to trust that He knows how best to arrange our
hearts, can get the ugly spots refreshed without rubbing us raw, and that He
won’t walk in and out disgusted with what He found inside.
Here’s the catch: He already knows
what’s inside. Long before He breaks down the door. Even before we issue the invitation.
While we’re still fortifying the stronghold. Before we’ve turned from sin and
invited the Lord to be our Savior, He knows what’s in those guarded hearts.
So the question –when we can’t
bring ourselves to open the door, when we can’t even find it in our hearts or
in the hearts of those we love- is less “God, break in” and more “when He
comes, will I go before Him in confidence?”
Because He will break in. Unlikely
the thief who sneaks in or tricks us into welcoming him, our Lord enters
through the door, or the gate. “Anyone
who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way,
is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of
the sheep” (John 10:1-2.)
Like the sheep, we are to know our
Shepherd. We are to know that when He enters, we follow Him and trust in Him. “We can now come boldly and confidently into
God's presence,” even as He enters our hearts, “because of Christ and our
faith in him” (Ephesians 3:12.)
Jesus isn’t just the one who breaks
down our door and enters through the gate –He is the gate. He is the
protector of our hearts, regardless of the fortifications we create. He is the
way by which God’s reaches into us and the way by which we access Him.
Praise the Lord that our hearts are
ultimately His.
