Today my heart was awakened once again. Its funny how the Lord leads me directly to the places in His Word that will speak straight to my heart. This is my last semester of school, so my focus is being split between so many different directions: my senior research project, normal classes, spending time with my friends before we all scatter, moving to a new city, trying to get a job, and new friendships or relationships. I always make time for God in my day, but I don’t always give Him the priority spot or the amount of time that He deserves. I’ve been reading 5 different books of the Bible and by doing that I’ve been getting poured into from all different directions. This morning He grabbed my attention with one line. “Then the Lord was jealous for his land and took pity on His people.” That just reminded me that HE IS JEALOUS FOR ME. Cue How He Loves (on repeat all day). At that point, I started the whole chapter over (Joel 2). This verse spoke to my heart as well,
“Rend your heart and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
for He is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and He relents from sending calamity.”
-Joel 2:13
Return to the Lord. Why is this something I need to be reminded of? I see Him in everything and ask Him for help all day long and sometimes even remember to thank Him (clearly I need to work on my prayers), but how often am I quiet and just sitting with God?...rarely. I love that He will never stop pursuing my heart.
Gracious. Compassionate. Slow to anger. Abounding in love. Those are some stacked qualities. I’m so thankful that my heart is being pursued by a God that is perfect in those qualities. Those are qualities that I aim to grow in.
Follow all this by a chapter of “The Sacred Romance,” and I realized I have some growing to do. What are the purpose of trials? I have always known that they are growing me and sharpening me and teaching me to rely on God in ways that I don’t. That’s still confusing though. Its so easy to turn to “false lovers” to dance around the trials in life and make them easier to bear... but thankfully, my True Love (God) is persistent in His pursuit of my heart, and refuses to let me take the easy way out.
John Eldredge says it best...
“As we grow into the love of God and the freedom of our own hearts, we grow in our ability to cast our vote on behalf of God. Our acts of love and sacrifice, the little decisions to leave our false loves behind and the great struggles of our heart reveal to the world our true identity: We really are the sons and daughters of God.”
