Surrender

Queen of Hearts Wrap Up: Heart Condition

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In the past few weeks we’ve covered the often misplaced emotions that can dwell inside of us, the portions of our hearts that still need the warmth and light of God’s love, and the challenge of learning how to pour out our hearts to God. Definitely not lightweight material. But remember, since we are trying to live our lives in truth and honesty  before God, these are the things that should get our attention. 

Not to violate our hearts or to make us feel shame, but so that we can begin to feel hope rise up and walk in victory. 

Our life isn’t just for us friends. As long as we are on this earth, we each have a mission to carry out. We can either do so by living this life with hearts that are broken and hurt or, we can live with hearts full of life, hope, and healing.

The choice is ours to make.

I wanted to share a portion of my daily devotion with you today. Just the notes I took from the study I am currently working through. This morning, I was reading through passages in the Bible and the repeated pattern I saw was that the people of God also had a heart condition with the following symptoms:

-Hardened hearts, hearts that didn’t fear The Lord, stubborn & rebellious hearts, and hearts that they allowed to lead them astray.

These might have been the symptoms from a people long ago, but friend, I can hold up the magnifying glass of scripture and find those attributes in myself. Can you too?

All those symptoms stem from the same place: The Heart. This heart condition also comes with a warning from The Great Physician Himself:

“Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on that day at Massah in wilderness where your fathers tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did.” (Psalm 95:8)

Do not harden your hearts.

What’s even greater? There is a treatment and prescription for this condition:

Worship & Bow Down. Kneel Before Our Maker in Surrender.

Why?

Because there is a world in need around us, waiting for us to heal so we can bring life, healing, and hope in Jesus’ Name.

Friends, below is my prayer from this morning. Real and honest. And if you’ve stayed with me this far, I invite you to pray it with me. Let this be OUR prayer today as we wrap up this series and continue this lesson. I don’t want to be the Queen of Hearts. I want to surrender to The King of Kings.

Let’s Pray: Lord, help our hearts to be softened to You alone. We don’t want to repeat history again with hardened hearts. We don’t want to be negligent of this condition that can overtake so quickly and destroy so much. We will come to You in worship and surrender, with joy, because You are God and King Most High. We will yield to You in reverence Holy Spirit, and come to You in worship as we bow down to counter act the hardness in our hearts. Thank You Lord for helping us to understand that we can give You total control of all that is within us, because You know how to care for those who belong to You. Amen.

peace- liz

Go The Extra Mile: I hope you’ve enjoyed this series and the music selections I’ve been adding – I’ve enjoyed creating these posts for us here on the blog, and I LOVE MUSIC! This song holds a special place in my heart, and I hope it meets you right where you are today:)

Queen of Hearts: Pour Out Your Heart

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I’m a huge fan of British shows and all things UK and one show that I found intriguing was “The Crown”. One particular episode caught my attention because it had another one of my favorite things: letters. In this episode, the brother (Edward) who had abdicated the throne was featured showcasing his attempts to find work and move back closer to the family. A few of the scenes showed him at a desk at the end of the night, writing out his thoughts and feelings to his dear wife- the one he chose and the one he shared everything with. It struck me. Not because of the content he was writing, but the faithfulness to this routine which many of us might not be familiar with: Pouring our hearts out at the end of the night.

I know this to be true: When we don’t pour out our hearts to God first, we end up with hearts overflowing with all kinds of unresolved feelings.

Let’s hit the switch.

I have a challenge for us this week: Instead ending our days throwing around hurt and complaints, I want us to pour out our hearts. Just as a warm cup of tea is slowly poured into the vessel it is being served, let’s slowly pour out:

the thoughts that we know are holding us captive,

the situations beyond our control,

the conversations and assumptions we have held in our heart,

the inner messages that we keep on playing that we know are lies and not truth,

the hurt that we’ve been hanging onto and holding against others,

and anything else that’s tried to make its home inside of our hearts.

Pour it out. All of it. Every single drop.

Holding onto all those things is a habit that we think gives us control. The truth is, we don’t have control. We have pieces of hurt and pain. We have pieces of frustration and anger. We have pieces of fear and anxiety. And each piece, is like a habit of laying bricks – thinking that it is keeping us safe when in actuality, we’ve imprisoned ourselves. What we thought was a defense system actually isolated our hearts from those we love and those who love us. It also separates us from God- because we’ve tried and tried to handle this habit in our own strength without sharing it with Him.

Friend, I want to remind you that God isn’t afraid of all that we’ve bottled up or built up in our hearts. He’s not. He actually invites us to come to Him:

He desires to spend time with us and that we spend time with Him, pouring out our hearts. We see this even when creation was perfect – God came down to walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the Day (Genesis 3:8). To walk and talk. Even after the fall, God still wanted mankind to share life with Him. Not just the pieces of our heart that can rejoice when life is going well, but He also wants to share life with us and hear us pour out the hurts and break the habits that have been holding us back from experiencing His best for our lives.

Our hearts matter to Him friend. They matter to him and they matter in eternity. How we use them, what we choose to hold onto, what we choose to let take root, what we treasure in them- all of it matters. 

So what will you pour out to Him today?

Will we let go of that which entangles us today?

I’m raising my hands friend- I want to pour out my heart to Him. I’m hoping you do too. I’m telling you the honest truth- my heart is heavy right now. As each little piece of our heart (yours and mine) trickles out to Him, it gets easier and easier to pour out the rest, like a steady stream.

Let’s Pray: Lord, let everything within us come out to you first, as an offering of surrender. We surrender our hearts to You in this moment. We surrendered to Your love and Your light that shines bright in the dark places. We surrender to a Your Truth that shows us a better way. We surrender to Your loving arms that welcome us in and hold us together when everything else feels like it is falling apart. We are done holding it all in, and we declare that we are ready to pour our hearts out to You so that in turn, You can use our lives to be poured out in service for Your glory. God, we thank You for the finished work of Jesus that allows us to be healed and made new. We accept it and we will choose to give you the praise for the healing that is taking place deep inside of us as we pour out our hearts to You. Amen.

peace – liz

Go The Extra Mile: Check out one of my absolute favorite messages in this song from The Belonging Co! The lyrics, “I don’t want it if You’re not in it I just want You…Your heart, Your ways, show me Your face…” that’s the whole point behind this series- to align our hearts to look and operate more like His and to become more intentional about our relationship with Him.