mended heart

A Mended Heart and A Deep Meaning of Happiness

                Total transformation. Christ-like. That’s what we’re called to; to be like Christ flows from a transformation of the heart. The heart, I believe is our whole being. It’s our mind, our strength, our soul – our being. When we are transformed by God and for God we are changed from the inside out, it will show in every part of our lives. With such a transformation comes the desire to continually grow ‘nearer, still nearer to Thee’ and become more like Christ. It’s a continual recognizing our disordered loves and lives, denying self and transforming. It is a love restored, reordered for God. 

                Over reading break I read Radical by David Platt. Talk about transforming. A book about the Book and for the glory of God; where I was challenged not only to be radical but to allow to transformation. I believe that through allowing transformation we will find God, God will become evident in our lives and that our happiness will be reordered, re-formed, refocused with God at the center. The redemptive work of God in me lets me live in the ‘already’; I get to experience a peace of heaven on earth, I get to experience some shalom in Him. Through the already I am in Christ, and become more like Him as I seek His will and long to do His will. In the already I am promised the ‘not yet’, the life to come, life eternal. As I believe in the – between already and not yet I am in Him. The – is what I live in now. It’s fantastic – I get to be in Christ and in the world too. God has called me here with a purpose and a profession or calling; through prayer and petition I can let God know my requests, because He has promised to listen to me. He has made this relationship possible in the already redemptive work of Christ.

                It’s not just fantastic to live in between the already and the not yet. It’s difficult at times. I experience doubt and confusion. I feel the earthquakes and the tremors, there are twists and turns in my life, there are upheavals and times of emptiness which I experience. But it is in those times that I am carried; as I journey I see God is working all things together for my good (Rom 8:28-29).  It is then, in the troubled times that God is forming me, teaching me to become more like Him. God brings me to the mountaintop sometimes, and I look back and see His beauty, His providence, His faithfulness. It is then that I sing and praise His most Holy Name. LORD, ‘Here I stand in awe … there’s nothing like Your presence, God’ (Here We Stand, Newsboys). I believe that God’s incredible work of Love in me is to mend my heart, and to let me experience true happiness, all for Him and for His glory.