This morning during my time talking with God, I couldn’t help but think of each person, each situation, that’s been on my heart. And so as I was handing Jesus the people and things on my heart, I couldn’t help but think a bit more.
One thing that came to mind when I handed Jesus what was on my heart, was that while I can only hand them over one at a time, God’s hands are big enough to take them all at once. God’s infinite grace and love once again overwhelmed my mind and own heart. While I’ve been known to multitask, when it comes to matter of the heart, multitasking is not option for a finite being such as myself…I know that I need to handle each person on my heart with delicacy, intent and love. I know that if I don’t, I’m just running through tasks, and not focusing on matters of the heart.
God, on the other hand, is infinite in handling matters of the heart. As I’m handing over the matters on my heart, Jesus is not only holding my heart, but also holding everyone else’s heart at the same time (how cool is that?). God is listening to your prayers just as I, like countless others, pray. God is not only holding on to our matters of the heart, but being beyond time and space, is helping us with those things on our heart, too. It just blows my mind when I think about all that God does with us, for us, and to us (transforms our lives) all at the same time…God is beyond our limited concept of time.
Then to take it one step further, God already knows what’s on our heart before we begin talking or handing over our hearts. God’s just waiting for us to hand it over, to entrust him with our heart and with our lives. Prayer is a gift from God…prayer is our gift to God.
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. –Ephesians 3: 16-19, New Living Translation
I read a story of a hospitalized, unconscious young woman. Through an auto accident she had sustained traumatic injury – the type that occurs from impact – to her entire body.
She descibed a night when a man opened her crushed body and lifted each of her organs, held them and placed them back. The acceptance, warmth, peace, hope, and awe preceded and followed each movement. She was healed…
Upon awakening in the morning, she asked the man at the end of the bed who he was and why he visited her during the night. The doctor identitfied himself, stated that no man had been there during the night.
This story immediately impressed me with the way in which Christ constantly reaches into our souls, minds, bodies and lifts our weariness, negativity, isolation, pride, mania, burden – even when we cannot extract ourselves from the enmeshed quality of all relationships.
I have used this to center myself so that I can begin to hand each thing over one at a time… and I know what it “feels” like to have him hold that one thing, or meet me part way and carefully hold it with me…
Thanks for sharing your experience, Ginny.
God seems to use all the event sin our life to shape and mold us, and God’s infinite grace and love is there at each step. His transforming work is ongoing.
I continue to pray for God’s grace and guidance so i can let go of the tasks and handle relationships with delicacy intent and love that each person deserves from me.
that was supposed to be “events in,” not sin ..
Jim, I was wondering if “event sin” was a edgy new way to describe the faith journey. And it’s applicable. God can and does shape and bold us through his infinite grace.
