My Heart’s Response
By Peggy Kleckner
“I will…rejoice in your love…”
Psalm 31:7a (NIV)
As
I was listening to Christian radio, I caught these words, “faith is the heart’s
response to God.” It is my heart’s response that pleases God, not my doing out
of duty or fear, but my heart’s response.
God is a lover.
Many
of us have abandoned our hearts and are living our lives from our head, our
mind. I think God wants more, for He says in Matthew 22:37 that we are to love
Him with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind. How well can
we do that if our hearts are broken or shut off?
Like
so many others, I have walked about with a broken and battered heart. I have
lost loved ones. I have felt the pain of divorce. I have walked through life
and, as God says, “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:32-33).
Trouble batters the heart. Not only do we begin to wonder if others love us in
tough times, but truly we question whether God loves us. Our mind and heart
demand answers. What will we believe?
Sadly,
many of us chose the same answer as the Prodigal Son in Luke 15; we took our
inheritance and walked away. We spent it all looking for attention, looking for
affirmation and affection. Then the famine came, as it did for the prodigal. We
had spent it all, and yet we still didn’t turn toward God. We tried to work for
ourselves, to earn our own way. In our misery and emptiness. it one day
occurred to us that we could turn back home. We were finally needy enough to
accept the risk.
We
turn and we find Him gladly welcoming us. But although we are happy to be
accepted, we stay guarded, still wondering if we are truly loved - - loved for
who we are, not what we can do - - or if we are loved only as a trophy
to be won and then set aside on a shelf. We struggle to believe that we are
lovable.
He
continues to woo us, to love us even in our guardedness. Then one day, our
heart responds and begins to bloom and He is delighted. We, who were so
wounded, so needy, so alone, find our hearts once again whole and alive. That
is the power of Christ in us, the hope of glory.
You
are loved with an everlasting love.
GOING DEEPER:
1. What dark corner of your heart is still
yearning for the answer to, “Does He truly love me?”
2. Can you
choose to believe for today that the answer is “yes” and turn toward Him?
FURTHER READING:
Peggy is a wife and
mother of four adult children - - two sons and two stepsons, and is an active
encourager at Oakwood Church in Delafield. She serves as the Coordinator of
Fresh Start.
