Breaking Down the Door

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“Above all else, guard your heart,

 for everything you do flows from it.” 

–Proverbs 4:23

                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.

“Nothing is hidden from God’s sight.” –Hebrews 4:13

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. 

Linking up with Thought-Provoking Thursday and #DancewithJesus

The Polished Words of Jesus Christ

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For those of us you who are also perfectionists, you know the agony of slowly tapping out words and tediously editing to ensure that your words are perfectly polished. Some of us extend our need for each word to be exact to our conversations with other people.

We have our reasons.

As wielders of words, we know their power. The more precise your words, the better your meaning will be conveyed. By putting out perfectly polished words, you get to choose exactly the message given to others without misunderstanding or misleading anyone.

But sometimes we over-edit. Sometimes the message we convey to others is so precise it says little at all and loses its impact.

Consider some of Jesus’ words:

 “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” –Mark 9:19

What a way to win people over, right? These raw words of Jesus imply His (Godly) frustration with humans living according to their human nature. He doesn’t find a kind, roundabout way to politely suggest that disbelief has implications.

But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” –Matthew 8:22

Ouch. Insensitive. Demanding. Bossy. We could read a lot into these words, and surely some who heard such phrases did.

Jesus wept. –John 11:35

It wasn’t what He spoke, but that He didn’t. Imagine how puzzling it must have been to see the Lord of the universe, the great Teacher, weep instead of comforting others and explaining that just in just minutes He would raise His friend from the dead.

 I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. –Luke 10:21

Polished words are often used to impress, control, and influence the wise and the learned. Jesus’ words were for the little children. Children could understand His frustration and His clear directive to follow Him and switch from a perspective of death and this world to one of eternal life. 

A child knows what it is to weep rather than find “the right words” because indeed, weeping with others is often just as comforting.

The difficulty with speaking and writing without all the polish is that people might see through the words.

Your readers might see through the raw words and witness a struggle you face right now instead of an issue you’ve resolved and are sharing “learned” insights about. Friends might find that your advice comes from a place of imperfection and, while you want it to be right, might be skewed or incomplete.

You might find yourself vulnerable, as we are vulnerable when we talk with children. Little people’s words aren’t polished. Their questions aren’t polite. The implications they read and lessons they pick up often mirror not what you so carefully explained but what was going on in your heart when you explained it.

What if like Jesus you let people see through to what you’re feeling right now, not just your tidied-up, lesson-learned analysis? Could you set aside control and your spotless reputation?

Because here’s what Jesus’s unpolished, raw words did that our cleaned up, decorated words often do not: pointed right to God’s heart. 

Rather than marking out each step as if it must be understood and handled, we could fix our eyes on the perfect author who writes even the messes into His plot.  

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith –Hebrews 12:2

This post is being shared on: #TestimonyTuesday, #RaRaLinkup, Intentionally Pursuing,Titus2sday, and Thought-Provoking Thursday.