Having an Open Heart
By Linda Rex
PREPARATION FOR EASTER OR LENT—My personal Lenten wilderness wanderings are taking me through some painful memories. They are also taking me to the place of recognizing and acknowledging my failures to love. This process is humbling and calls forth in me an anguished cry to God for deliverance and renewal.
The hardest thing for me to accept is the realization that if I had only listened more carefully to what the Spirit was telling me and had promptly done things his way, not in my own stubborn “righteous” way, things in my life would have been a lot better, a lot less people would have been hurt, and the lessons life had for me would have been much easier to swallow.
So often God’s love and grace stand ready to bring healing and wholeness, but we are not willing to open ourselves up to them. God’s love and grace don’t always appear the way we expect them to—case in point being the Messiah who would be a suffering servant rather than a conquering hero. We want God to conform to our ideas of how things should be rather than simply surrendering to him and his plans and ways.
Now I could wallow in guilt and shame, but it would really serve no purpose but to keep me in a place where the evil one can create even more destruction and death. No, the better thing is to receive what God is offering and be open to what he wants to change in me and in my life. Having an open heart to receive all God has for me is a better place to be.
There are many times in life when circumstances and situations are beyond our control. We struggle to do the next right thing in what seems to be an impossible situation. We seek God’s will and guidance and take another step forward. We try to live the best we know how. And still we fall short. Life takes its toll. Relationships are broken or severed. People die. Businesses fail.
We find ourselves wondering how to find the capacity to move on. Life in this broken world is tough. Becoming a Christian isn’t the solution to every little problem in this world. Sometimes becoming a Christian actually makes things even more difficult or painful. The road we walk on as we follow Christ is a path through death to resurrection. There are sacrifices and suffering which go with the Christian life, as well as many deep joys and pleasures.
God doesn’t remove the realities of our human experience. Rather he enters into them with us and walks with us through them. He carries our sorrows, lifts our burdens, and shares our struggles. Sometimes he makes things easier and gives us great redemption in an impossible situation. There are times when he allows us to go through a great trial, but he never intends us to go through it on our own—we are meant to have him present, in us, with us, and for us in every circumstance.
God has covenanted with us in Christ to be ours and has made us his. Nothing can separate us from his love (Rom. 8:38-39). He longs to gather us to himself and to express his great love and devotion. He doesn’t want us to suffer needlessly, so he gives us not only a relationship with himself, but also Christ to follow. Christ is our life (Col. 3:4) and is the substance of our existence. He is the perfected humanity we are being formed into by the Holy Spirit.
The cry of Jesus to the city of Jerusalem is the cry of Abba’s heart to you and to me. He doesn’t want us to struggle or to suffer but rather to rest in his embrace—to be at peace with him. So he has given us this rest, this peace, in Jesus. The Spirit affirms the truth that we are accepted in Christ, we are forgiven children, beloved and always welcome in our Abba’s heavenly home.
When faced with the reality of our failures to love or to be faithful to God, we need not be overwhelmed with failure. Rather we need to focus on the power and love of the God who overcame death through resurrection. Our gracious God can take a situation full of brokenness, guilt, and shame, and turn it into a means of redemption and renewal. He can turn it into opportunity to show to many the glory of his goodness, love and grace.
When we resist his grace and love, when we refuse to allow God to redeem a situation or to bring about redemption and renewal in a broken relationship, we are like Jerusalem refusing to receive and acknowledge their Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. All that’s left to us is our desolate house, our broken life, our shattered dreams.
If God’s purpose is to redeem, restore, and renew all things (which it is) then we want to have open hearts to receive God’s restoration, redemption and renewal. We want to be open to the possibilities rather than resistant to the Spirit’s work. We want to available to participate in God’s work, joining with him as he rebuilds, transforms, and heals.
This is the kingdom life we were included in through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension and in the sending of the Spirit. This is the life of the church, the Body of Christ, in this world as participants in Jesus’ priesthood, his ministry to all humanity. God is at work to heal, restore and renew, and we are included in his mission in this world. May we always be open to his possibilities in the midst of our impossibilities, to his light in our darkness, to his life in our death.
Dear Abba, thank you for the gift of life, grace and love through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Give us open hearts and open hands that we may receive all you have done for us through Christ and all you desire to give us in every moment. We praise you for your faithful love and abundant grace through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! Behold, your house is left to you desolate; …” Luke 13:34b-35a NASB
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.” Philippians 3:20-21 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 