To be honest, I really have no idea where this post is headed, if it will have a "theme," or even a main topic. I just know that it is time to write again and I pray that my own words will be few. May He speak through me and guide my fingers.
I have been in an intense mood lately.
I figure that I should get some of this seriousness out in a post before I move on to the sappy stuff about going back to school and leaving behind beautiful brothers and sisters who I have been privileged to see grow all summer and how much I will miss them and how much they have taught me and how much I love them and all those happy tears.
When I sit here and meditate and rack my brain over what the Holy Spirit really is making prevalent in my life and heart right now it is kind of hard because He is showing me a novel filled with whole pages and entire chapters and I can only view one word at a time. It's like I'm having to read my thoughts. And He is a pretty good writer.
Since Puerto Rico, I have been experiencing some spiritual warfare, which is normal and tough and I would even venture to say appreciated. It has been quite the battle, but I have gotten to experience some deep intimacy with my Commander through it. Constantly crying out to God for help is one of the most two-sided feelings ever... because as hard as it is to keep my thoughts focused on Christ--to keep my hope in Him, going against the flesh while dodging bullets left and right--it is so immediately worth it because I get to feel God's compassion and strength and love and why would I ever trade earthly comfort for heavenly intimacy?
I have a question, and answers really would be nice--however you want to reach me. I am curious. This questions addresses something that I have just now began experiencing for probably the past 4 or 5 months, and at first I wasn't sure if it was just my mind playing tricks on me or if it was just another example of God's unexpected grace through His presence.
...............................
Am I the only one who feels some type of physical reaction from the effect of God working? Sometimes I can feel my heart being shaped. Or, even, I can feel my heart being twisted. Which, may be really cool considering one of the Hebrew words for "hope" is qawah, meaning "to bind together by twisting." Maybe that is just His way of twisting our hearts around His to create in us an intimate and unbreakable hope. Maybe that is what hope feels like. I hope so.
^Unexpected pun in a serious post.
Seriously, I can legitimately feel my heart being pressed and moved. Not only an emotional-type feel, a physical-type feel, ya feel? The only answer I have for it is that God must be in the process of shaping me. Whether it be preparing me for something to come, ridding me of sinful ways, or planting new fruits in me, I can feel it. Afterwards, sometimes minutes, sometimes weeks, sometimes months, I know there is something different about me. Something about me that is no longer me.
I like visual stuff. I like visualizing. So humor me here, and try this.
Picture your heart. Not someone else's, yours. I know, I know, you probably have no idea what your heart actually looks like. That is why this is a creative exercise. Or it is just my peculiarity showing. Anyway, picture your heart and picture a set of hands. God's hands, of course. Now apply this:
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Jeremiah 18:1-4
Isn't that a lovely image? Your heart, plopped down on a wheel, completely exposed, completely pliable, completely marred. In need of shaping. In need of newness.
Oh, we could not trust a better pair of hands.
Picture this. The molding, the shaping. Now add feeling to it, like your heart is still attached to your nerves and vessels and all that biological stuff and you can feel it inside of you changing and you wonder what it is going to look like when it is finally finished but you can never know because it will only be finished when His hands stop moving. And they never stop.
The Father, sitting at the wheel, molding our hearts, pressing them in different directions, shaving off the undesirable parts and carefully carving out the most intricate and beautiful designs. With a keen eye and perfect precision...
And then, it is "best to Him."
Not "best to us." Best to Him.
May we put our hearts on the wheel and let Him do the spinning.
LMB
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