Waiting for Noon

A long time ago, I wrote about the "beauty of ugliness," and that has stuck with me ever since. I see it everywhere now. A few days ago, I wrote this on a post-it note:

"The beauty of ugliness directly plays into the Gospel and God's response to us when we mess up. His response is not anger but to devise a plan to reconcile us to Himself. 2nd Samuel and Romans 5."


So the obvious gap that I had been experience was no doubt some unconfessed sin in my heart. But what? I had a gut instinct that it had something to do with my lack of trust lately, but was a lack of trust really a sin? It seemed pretty fundamental and something that I should have understood by now, but let's be real. I didn't know.
So I googled "sin" and "trust."

I clicked on the first website that I came across. It was helpful and brought me back to the verse(s) that I have been stumbling on all year.
Mark 12:29-31
Jesus said the Commandments are summed up in this: Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.

Somehow I missed it the whole time. I have spent so much time concentrated on the second that I have forgotten about the more important one. There is not a second without a the first. Oh how blind I am.

So I spent the next 2 hours looking up every verse in the Bible that mentions the word "heart." I know... But I was desperate. I really wanted to break down the Greatest Commandment. It seemed pretty important.

545 verses later, this is what I discovered... (And I have scripture to back it all up.)

The heart is evil from childhood. The heart can be hardened on purpose by God or by our own doing. The heart can be discouraged. The heart remembers. The heart can be proud and forget. The heart can despair. The heart should be circumcised in order to love God fully and live. The Word is written on it. It can rejoice. God has a heart. The heart can change. It can be wicked and conceited. Terror can fill it. It has desires. It can discern. It can be joyful and glad. It can have integrity and wisdom. It can turn from God. If we follow it and keep His commands, we will always do right in His eyes. It can respond. It can seek. It can be tested. It can be sad or faithful. It can hide sin. Your heart can be one with someone else's.

Ok. A ton of cool things learned came out of this. But basically, the heart is everything. It is the connection between you and God. But at the same time, the heart is deceitful. I drew a couple of diagrams to help me. I'll see if i can do them on here.

God
(His heart)
I
I
My heart
I
I
Who I Am (My heart, soul, and strength)

So God has a heart. (1 Sam 2:35) And it connects directly to my heart. He speaks to us through our hearts. His Word is written on our hearts. And His Word is exactly that...His words to us. He speaks to us.
So my heart then is the source that connects to God. And that feeds into all the rest of me.
My soul: Who I am at the core. I am an artist, a thinker, a questioner, a student, a teacher, a troublemaker and a peacemaker.
My mind: My thoughts and the processing that happens.
My strength: What I am capable of. What I am good at. My gifts, talents and ambitions.

So basically, my heart is everything. But at the same time, it is deceitful. So somehow, we must trust God in order to get past ourselves so that we can have that direct and close connection. Let's break that picture down a little more, shall we?

God -----> Heart (With sin) /\/\/\/\/\-> Me

God -----> Heart (confessed sin) -----> Me

Again, a poor picture, but it does the job in my head. It's the same pathway, but sin distorts the message so that it either doesn't get through at all or it gets through garbled. And that message is vital. Purify the heart to remove the barrier.

Ok. But we're still basically at Square 1 here.

What does it all mean? It means to love Him with all you are because everything else comes from the heart. But what does this look like in my life now?...

I am not trusting God with all of my heart. And this is in defiance of a commandment, yes. But more importantly, it causes a garbled message. I have been loving God with my mind and soul and strength, but my heart was left out of the equation. It is the reason I can run through the motions. But without the heart, it is nothing because everything must flow from the heart. Not the other way around. Without it, we are but "clanging drums" because we are to glorify God and reflect back God to Himself, not ourselves.

So to trust God with my heart...
To trust Him with my fears. My anxiety. My joy. My desires. My plans. My creativity. My gift for connecting to people.

I have given into the seemingly elementary lies that we all seem to think we move past and become immune to. But we are not immune! GAR! What lies!! The lies that we think we have covered when we hit a certain point in our depth with God. "What are you talking about? I can do it this. I've got it in the bag. I know how to trust Christ." It's amazing, really, what an intricate and cunning and smart ability Satan has to deceive us if we are not continually reliant on the grace of God.

I was striving. Not trusting.

Good intentions are not enough. Only the sacrifice of Christ allows me into the connection that I desire and need for life. That connection is my life source--my air supply. It is what I must have to survive. I am fully dependent on it for survival, but sometimes I stubbornly hold my breath, believing that my lungs will produce air -oxygen and nitrogen- on their own. It is a silly thought, isn't it?

My Jesus, I am sorry. I was wrong. Restore to me a clean heart and do not tun your face from me any longer. Like the sun rising and shedding light on the tree branches, from the top to the bottom, renew me. Transform me into your beauty.

I stand with the trees, and I wait for noon.