“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
Proverbs 4:23
I always thought grief was the range of emotions people went through after the death of loved one, or a traumatic loss. I couldn’t imagine that I was in grief. After all, it was eight months already since my brother died so, I didn’t think it was from that. Yet, I couldn’t explain my feelings. I had had my heart defibrillator for about a month when the feelings began.
Have you ever had feelings of emotional pain for what you think you’ve lost, but really, you haven’t lost anything? Our hearts lead our feelings; Proverbs 4:23 tells us everything we feel flows from it. My heart was impaired. Wow, it was even painful for me to say those words. Nothing hurts like a broken heart. That’s the premise of almost every good Country and Western song, right? Of course, those songs are talking about a metaphorical broken heart. But, what about when your heart begins to hurt physically? Can’t that mess with your mind too? You bet it can.
During Lent, we intentionally spend greater time in prayer, meditation and fasting to grow stronger spiritually as we get closer to Christ. The closer we grow to Him, the more the hidden desires of our hearts are revealed. Do we really want His will for our lives? What about what we’ve always wanted for our lives? And how about this one? Doesn’t the Bible say, “…He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4) Yes it does. But, that is a promise only to those who “delight” themselves in the Lord.
To delight oneself in the Lord is to want for our lives, whatever He wants. If that means we must go through hard times and tragedies, we can rest knowing that while Jesus didn’t cause them, He will help us learn from them. The difficulties of life are either the result of our own making, or the consequence of living in a fallen world. Such difficulties leave us with wounded hearts. But, when we bring our hearts to Christ, He is always faithful to renew them. We must always surrender our hearts to whatever Jesus wants for our lives – no matter what.
In my case, I was depressed thinking of what I thought I’d lost, because I had to have a small electrical machine wired to my heart to keep it safe from its own genetic defect. Would I ever be the same again? Would I be able to play with my kids? And, what about growing old with my wife and being active for the grandkids I hoped to have some day? The doctor never told me I’d be missing out on any of those things. I assumed them. Like many of us, I assumed the worst.
I knew something was wrong with my feelings. I knew in my faith I should have peace of heart, but I didn’t. With the help of a new friend I met that year (Who was going through the same thing), I began to realize I was grieving. I feared accidentally doing something too strenuous for my heart that would cause my defibrillator to shock me. Of course, I knew that if I were shocked, that meant I’d have been dead without it. Suddenly I felt so mortal. What if it shocked me while I was driving, or perhaps while preaching? Our minds can conjure up all kinds of worries. But, once I admitted I was grieving for things I hadn’t even lost yet, I began to deal with it.
What about you? Are you grieving for something you haven’t even lost yet? Don’t let your heart hurt over things you can’t control. Jesus wants to bring peace to your heart. The prophet Isaiah promised the peace of Christ to all who will trust Him:
Thou dost keep him in perfect peace,
whose mind is stayed on thee,
because he trusts in thee.
Trust in the Lord for ever,
for the Lord God
is an everlasting rock.
Isaiah 26:3,4
Won’t you renew your heart today by bringing all your cares to Him? Let Jesus give you a heart of perfect peace. Hearts of Perfect peace trust the keeper of their heart for everything.
Shalom,
Pastor Brad
My daily Lenten prayer – “Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit. ” NRSV
I turned in my heart monitor thinking I would finally find out why my heart rhythms were so crazy. I had worn it for a week. Every time I felt some strange rhythms I had to push a button that would record what my heart was doing. Each day I had to upload the data to the Dr.’s office so they could monitor anything dangerous. My last upload was Monday night, and Tuesday noon I went to turn it in to the office. I couldn’t believe what they told me. “Everything looks okay. There are some arrhythmias but nothing bad.” There had to be more to the story.
It was a hot afternoon and I had just finished playing Tennis with my Pastor. There was a family in the church who had a swimming pool and they had told him that he could use it any time. I told him I couldn’t swim, but he said I could just cool off in the shallow end. So, we went to the pool to relax and cool off. My Pastor got out of the pool and decided to lay in the sun for a while. I thought this would be a great time to practice my float on my back as I had in the swim lessons I’d taken about a year before. The next thing I knew, my life was literally flashing before my eyes.
In that moment, in the blink of an eye, I went from calm and serene, to shear panic. My life literally flashed before my eyes. I thought this was the end. I was going to drown in that pool. But, my pastor was there. Surely, he would jump in and save me. I cried out to the Lord, “Save me O God! Don’t let me die like this!” Just then, my toes hit concrete and I could drag myself to the edge of the pool. There at the edge of the pool, standing down and looking in was my Pastor. He said, “Are you alright?”. The only thing I could manage to say between coughing up water was, “No, thanks to you! What happened to all that talk of laying down your life for a friend? You didn’t jump in to save me!” To which he said, “The way you were flailing around, you would have dragged us both down!”
Don’t you hate it when someone says to you, “Is it too much to ask?” If I hear those words, (Which always seem to carry a note of disgust in their tone) correctly, I’ve let them down in some way. Maybe it was a breakdown in communication, or perhaps I just didn’t want to do what was asked of me. Either way, in their mind, I let them down. I hate to let people down.
Sometimes, I sense God saying those words I hate to me… “Brad, can’t you be happy with your comfortable life I’ve blessed you with, your family and friends, the roof over your head and all the food in your pantry? Is that too much to ask?” I know I’m not the only one with this problem of thanklessness; it seems to be pandemic in our culture.
Many people walk through life with heavy hearts. Some are heavy because of sadness or grief, some because of consequence. To some people Lent seems a time for sadness. They dwell upon their sin and sing “woe is me”. They think that in their sadness the Lord is pleased. While it is true that we should be sorrowful for our sins, it’s not true that we should dwell in that sorrow.
The taste of Life Boy soap in my mouth still lingers when I remember that day. I was sitting on the back steps of our friends’ house in Colorado Springs. My friend was teaching me to play a game. Every time you say a “cuss” word you get slugged in the arm. There were two points to that game; to see how many cuss words you can think of, and to see how tough you were in who could take the most hits.
When I was a little boy of 4 or 5 years, and people would come to our house to visit, I always thought they were coming to see me; of course, they weren’t. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to be in on everything that was being said. I didn’t want to miss out on anything. The guests had come to see my Mom or Dad, but that wasn’t obvious to me. After all, why wouldn’t they come to see me? But then, what my Mom and Dad would usually say to me was crushing.