I read this from yesterday and was moved by how John Eldredge put this. After working with Clay & RyLee on their wedding and seeing how God has blessed them with each other and how He put them together, I have been thinking a lot about The Heart. It is the wellspring of life, out of it the abundance of who we are flows. Our hearts are not bad, they are God's heart and we have to learn to let it flow. He fills it with so much love, and everyone is not willing to accept that love, but nevertheless, it is still there, ready to flow out to the one or to those that are or will be vulnerable and open themselves to receive it. The heart is a very complex thing but......it means so much to God and so it should to us.
“Above all else, guard your heart.” We usually hear this with a sense of “Keep an eye on that heart of yours,” in the way you’d warn a deputy watching over some dangerous outlaw, or a bad dog the neighbors let run. “Don’t let him out of your sight.” Having so long believed our hearts are evil, we assume the warning is to keep us out of trouble. So we lock up our hearts and throw away the key and then try to get on with our living. But that isn’t the spirit of the command at all. It doesn’t say guard your heart because it’s criminal; it says guard your heart because it is the wellspring of your life, because it is a treasure, because everything else depends on it. How kind of God to give us this warning, like someone’s entrusting to a friend something precious to him, with the words: “Be careful with this—it means a lot to me.” (Waking the Dead , 207–8)
Today's devotional talks about the Spring and I think this year especially we have all longed for it. Winter has hung on this year like it would not let go. There is so much about Spring that gives us hope, a fresh start, a new begining with those around us, in every area of our life. Hope in what God has started, He will finish. He won't leave us hanging, He won't leave us in The Winter.
"Winter tarries long at six thousand feet. Here in the Rocky Mountains, spring comes late and fitfully. We had snow again last week—the second week in May. I’ve come to accept that spring here is really a wrestling match between winter and summer. It makes for a long time of waiting. You see, the flowers are pretty much gone in September. The first of October, the aspens start turning gold and drop their leaves in a week or two. Come November, all is gray. Initially, I don’t mind. The coming of winter has its joys, and there are Thanksgiving and Christmastime to look forward to.
But after the new year, things begin to drag on. Through February and then March, the earth remains lifeless. The whole world lies shadowed in brown and gray tones, like an old photograph. Winter’s novelty is long past, and by April we are longing for some sign of life—some color, some hope. It’s too long.
And then, just this afternoon, I rounded the corner into our neighborhood, and suddenly, the world was green again. What had been rock and twig and dead mulch was a rich oriental carpet of green. I was shocked, stunned. How did it happen? As if in disbelief, I got out of my car and began to walk through the woods, touching every leaf. The birds are back as well, waking us in the morning with their glad songs. It happened suddenly. In the twinkling of an eye.
My surprise is telling. It seems natural to long for spring; it is another thing to be completely stunned by its return. I am truly and genuinely surprised, as if my reaction were, Really? What are you doing here? And then I realized, I thought I’d never see you again. I think in some deep place inside, I had accepted the fact that winter is what is really true . . . And so I am shocked by the return of spring. And I wonder, Can the same thing happen for my soul?" (The Journey of Desire , 108–9)
