Sunday, October 16, 2011

The Valuable Heart


There are few among us that have the ability to see value in something that at first glance appears broken and worn out. Granted, these few are able to see a diamond in the rough and take the chance at renewing its value to the eye of the uninitiated. And for sure there have been “pickers” who take one man’s junk and make it into another man’s treasure, but again I say they are few. If not we’d have far less retail marketers than we currently do.

But let me express what the Lord spoke to my heart this very hour.

Even less are those among us that have the Spirit born ability to see value in something that at first glance appears broken and worn out: namely the human heart.

I say that because, the most precious place God can find a home, is within the heart that is broken and worn out with its own efforts and designs. For in the failure of self and society are we able and only to find the sufficiency that Christ alone will meet within us.

It is at the place of brokenness that the Spirit of God shines light into dark places. It is at the place of brokenness that the Spirit of God breathes life into the vacant lungs of the expired. It is at this place that we most often reach behind the veil and touch the Face and the tears of the One who through the most amazing means is touched by the feelings of our weaknesses.

Now granted the Book reminds us that He will give us beauty for ashes and a garment of praise to overshadow the spirit of heaviness, but oh how the lead up to that trade off often comes: through brokenness and pain.

A good and noble heart is indeed the place that God desires to plant great Seed for a bountiful harvest and Kingdom glory; but no man’s heart is born good and noble, except by the test of time and tension. Time and tension over desires unmet or needs thwarted so as to make one so vacuous that only the grace of God can supply and satisfy.

So which heart is The Valuable Heart? Is it the one that is strong and beats with no assistance or need of resuscitation? Or could it be the one that is constantly aware of its dire need of Life support. Is it the heart that, while on one hand is beating and demonstrating that Life is present, is also fully aware of where that Life source comes from?

I truly believe that brokenness and a condition of contrition are the most valuable assets available to the Lord and His plan for each one as well as this collection of souls inhabiting this planet. For in the place of brokenness and contrition, the spirit of pride and self-sufficiency are deftly slain to rest. They are sworn to the oath of awareness that says: I cannot – but He alone can.

And it is there and there alone that The Valuable Heart is made known. It is where I end and He begins. It is the place where daily I must meet my Maker and acknowledge that even in His blessed provisions I have no hand or design. For The Valuable Heart fully understands that we are nothing but a lump of un-thrown clay on the wheel of the Master’s Plan.

Oh that I would have a strong and healthy cardio vascular system, of which I am most responsible for; but my spirits cardio vascular systems success, rests fully in the acknowledgment of its own failed efforts. All of which leads to The Valuable Heart that has been arrested unto death by the sake of its own efforts – only to find Life in Him alone.

Father God, teach me the strong yet tender lesson of The Valuable Heart that is Yours alone.

Amen

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