A Soft Heart part 3
You don't guard your heart by closing it down, and refusing to let anything in or out. You guard your heart by opening it up. By responding to the voice of your Beloved knocking and letting love in. Let me use another picture: If you want a seed to grow you need to plant it in soft ground. A soft heart lets LOVE grow! And I want to use one of my favorite Bible verses to illustrate this. Hosea 6:3, "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth." The latter and the former rain. And while that might SEEM backwards, it's really not. The former rain softens the ground so the seed can be sown. And the latter rain makes the seed grow, bringing forth a great harvest. But in the upside down, backwards economy of the Kingdom, the latter rain comes first. On the cross God poured Himself into us. He gave us everything He has--everything He IS. The latter rain. And then, after that, the former rain comes. To soften our hearts so that we can RECEIVE the gift (of Himself) that we've already been given. He did it all so we could get it all. And we have it all. That's a done deal. It is finished. So the journey is not to "get" anything, but to receive, to experience, what we already have. And we do that by guarding and keeping our hearts. The NIV verson of Hosea 6:3 begins, "Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him." How do we acknowledge God? By acknowledging LOVE! And how do we acknowledge love? By knowing and believing that we ARE loved, and by loving one another with that same love! We keep our heart open to love. We don't make our heart hard, and try to protect ourselves from the heartache that love can bring. And listen, I know from experience that love CAN bring heartache. But I think that heartache really comes from the expectation we put on love. We think, "I love you, so you should love me back." But love doesn't work like that. So when it doesn't work like that we feel hurt. But that's not love's fault, it's the fault of our faulty expectations. Love is NEVER about getting. It is ALWAYS about giving. Love IS giving. And that's why love never fails: Because when you give--without expectation--your love is perfect. And perfect love casts out fear. You don't have to be afraid of how people will respond to your love. All you have to do is receive Daddy's love... and then release it. Share it. Spread it around. Keep your heart soft so the seed of love can grow. So what's inside you can come out. Not by you trying to force it out, but simply by you believing it's in there and then it being so big that it comes out naturally! Being loved and loving others is the whole point of life. To live is to love and to love is to live. The issues of life flow from the heart. It's all about love! A soft heart is capable of love, and that makes the owner of a soft heart capable of living the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of Jesus by letting HIM live HIS life in, and through, and as us!