A Bleeding Heart

[Ezekiel 36:26-28] - I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.
I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put My spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws. 
You will live in the land I gave to your forefathers.
You will be my people and I will be your God.

And through all of this, there is nothing, absolutely nothing.
No fear, no insecurity, no doubt, no hesitation that will ever, ever stop us. 
Because we are the sons of the living God.
Because we are the children of the Almighty.
Because we are the residents of the kingdom of Heaven. 
And we are soldiers in an army of the immortal.
And when we speak life, life happens.
And when we speak healing, healing happens.
And when we speak truth, truth happens.
And when we go and take what we have found to a dead world, we’ll see it come to life again.
And when we take what we have found to a hopeless world, we’ll see hope come back. 
We’ll see the heart of our world start beating again. 
And we’ll see the color come back into people’s faces.
And absolutely nothing will ever stop that.
And mountains will move before us.
And oceans will part before us.
And the dead will raise before us.
And the world will know that our God is a god that heals.
That our God is a god that lives.
And our God is a god that loves unlike anything anyone has ever felt before.
Because we are fearless.
Because we are His hands.
And because we are His feet forever and ever. 

This was written under a year ago.  To think of how much change and growth that has occurred is overwhelming.

This stress causes pain and a certain being of understanding.  Through pain comes renewal and through that renewal, I find strength.  What does this strength succumb to?  At what point do we let down the walls that guard our very being?  I have felt pain, I have felt denial, I have felt betrayal, and I have felt heartache.  For what?  Why is it that we even have to experience these things?  At the moment of hopelessness, all that I can feel is loneliness and pain; an indescribable pain beyond reasoning.  Life has taught me nothing but death, destruction, and despair.  So why is it that I even get up each morning to face yet another cadaverous sunrise?  I left everything that I believed in behind only to feel alone.  The aching of something new and beautiful gnashes at my very being.  I succumb to the dread, look my demons in the eyes, and lay bare my chest, screaming to do their best to destroy me.  Through this mad world, I pace the streets of darkness looking for a light, looking for a purpose.  In the distance I find a glimmer; a hope of peace within myself.  Do I choose to dwell in this dreary, cold darkness, or do I choose to throw all of myself towards something that may be nothing more than a mirage?  Will everything I know be gone if I do not wake up from this grieving?  How much longer will I have to bleed from these burdens before I come to my senses?  My bruised heart bleeds blue and red with desire; desire for a fire to warm my soul.  I look around and see despair covering the earth and know that I am not alone.  Through these trials, I finally see that I can never truly appreciate the good in my life without them.  Though they may seem extreme and overwhelming at the time, each and every time I find myself at the other end of it and living to tell of my hardships.  That doesn’t mean I am happy as I pass beyond because the pain never leaves.  I will carry hurt for the rest of my life but I am stronger because of that.

How easily can we find ourselves ‘off-balance’?  We all have this equilibrium built within us; a sense of balance.  I wonder if that’s the case in our spiritual life?  Do we always know when we are ‘out-of-whack’?  Personally, I don’t think so.  I believe there are plenty of times when we are stable merely by friction.  Allow me to expound; I feel safe to say that we all know how friction works but just in case: due to friction, objects in motion slow down and, due to friction, objects don’t move unless acted upon by an unbalanced force (Newton’s first law).  I believe that our spiritual lives can often be off-kilter without us even knowing it.  We seem to be stable and fine because we aren’t ‘sliding’ in any particular direction, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t off balance.  Just like a block of wood on a hill, friction cause the block not to actually move until a certain point.  Who’s to say that that isn’t us?  The point is very simple; just because everything seems fine and dandy doesn’t mean you are balanced.  Don’t ever be content with your relationship with God.  We can be happy with that relationship but there are ALWAYS more areas to grow with God in.  I urge you, brother and sister, to continually seek our father and never be content with where you are in your faith.

-A Heartbeat

Human desires.  Oh the fascination we have with bondage.  It’s funny to look back on time and how much even language has changed.  Some call it bondage, some call it addiction, and others call it only a habit.  What we are missing is the fact that many of these ‘habits’ are deadly to us physically and/or spiritually.  We don’t see the effect just like we can’t really notice a roommate’s weight loss over a couple months.  As we see/experience something every single day, we are blinded to the change that occurs ie: Take who you are today and compare it to who you were a year ago.  Are you the same?  No; however you didn’t notice this change that occurred day-by-day.  So many little things that we allow into our lives have such a grand effect on who we define ourselves as.  What we don’t realize is that it is, in fact, the little things that determine when and where the big things happen.  Now is not to say that we should scrutinize every little thing that we do and analyze if it’s a good/bad habit.  The point is to just be careful what we allow into our lives.  Be careful what we watch, what we listen to, what we do, and who we surround ourselves with.  Believe it or not, our parents had it right when they would tell us, “You are who you’re friends are.”  Are there exceptions to this common statement?  Most definitely.  However, that isn’t license to throw around.

Sooner or later, we find ourselves to a point where opinions don’t matter anymore.  ”I am who I am, get over it” and “Opinions are like ***holes, everyone has them and they stink” are statements that our culture is telling us.  AND WE BELIEVE IT!  Whatever happened to respecting elders?  Do you have to follow what they say?  No; but believe it or not, they know what they are talking about.  They have been through anything you can throw at them.  You are NOT the first person to experience what you are experiencing and the ‘help’ you keep praying for is right in front of your face if you would just choose to stop being stubborn and open your eyes and ears.  But I digress.  Today, our desires define us.  To say we shouldn’t have desires is asinine but to be controlled by them is even more moronic.  We don’t always have a choice in what we desire but we do have a choice in what we partake in.

-A Heartbeat

Just watched ‘Saving Private Ryan’.  A great movie with lots of action, a great cast, and a story that has to pull at heartstrings.  Something really hit me hard at the end of the movie.  Tom Hanks, Capt. Miller, whispers to Matt Damon, Private Ryan, “earn this. Earn it.”  Then the ending goes on to show Private Ryan as an older gentleman, saluting the grave of Capt. Miller.  Hello waterworks.  Do we earn the freedom that so many soldiers have sacrificed their lives for?  Are we truly grateful for them and what they gave?  Do we even think about them?  Then an even greater thought comes to mind; We have a Father that gave His ONLY incarnate son to die for our souls.  Do we earn that each day?  Are we grateful?  Do we even think about that?  The good thing is that we don’t have to earn it.  How awesome of a God do we serve that He doesn’t expect or even want us to ‘earn’ what was given for us.  Our lives shouldn’t be lived trying to earn what was given.  It should be lived in gratitude of that sacrifice.  A gratitude that shows in the smile on your face; a gratitude that shows in your willingness to help strangers; a gratitude that shows in leading by serving; a gratitude that shows in the most mundane activities.  Slowly you will find that this life of gratitude has turned into a life worthy of the sacrifice.  This shouldn’t be our objective though, for the relationship we will have with our Father is most definitely worth any sacrifice that we can give ourselves.  So I urge you brothers and sisters, do not live by merit but by thanks.  Thanks be to God, our Father, for the living sacrifice of His son for our souls.

-A Heartbeat

The human being as an individual is quite interesting, to say the least. As humans, we have double standards, we’re hypocrites, our minds work in a very peculiar way.  Some say ‘faith’ is preposterous because it involves something that can’t necessarily be proven while believing that science is the answer to everything. To what extent do things have to be ‘proven’ in order be considered true? More importantly, why is faith in a spiritual being always argued with science? Look up the definition to ‘science’ real quick…don’t worry, I’ll wait. In no way does science involve the spiritual realm. The whole point behind faith is a trust in something that hasn’t been proven. If you want to break faith down to it’s simplest form, it’s trust. To have faith in something/someone is to have trust in it/them. To use the most outlandish example; do we get DNA tests to prove our parents are our parents? No, we trust them. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a certain point where we need to take a step back and evaluate what it is that we are believing. I have ‘faith’ that my pastor isn’t leading me astray from the teachings of the Bible, but that doesn’t mean I don’t make sure what I am being taught is accurate with those teachings. There are some aspects of our faith in God where we, as humans, need some sort of explanation. However, there are also some aspects where all we will have is faith. It is in those moments where our understanding of the Gospel and our own personal understanding of who God is, as much as we can hope that to be, comes into play. Do you have enough faith in our Father to trust that He is who He says He is? Do you have enough faith in our Father to walk into the pitch black with only Him as a guide? There isn’t always going to be a map of where you are going. I’ll go so far as to say that there is hardly ever a map. Do you have faith that the Creator of the Universe, our Father, our God, knows what He is doing and where He is leading us? Science doesn’t change what faith is. Science is merely an attempt to understand and that is absolutely fine. In no way am I attacking science. Like I have said, as humans, we want to understand. It’s when we take science beyond what it is, or what it is defined as, that the waters become murky. It is then that arguments of absolutely no importance come about. Its just a whisper compared to what is truly important.  I don’t care if you do or do not believe in the literal seven days of creation. It’s not one bit important. I’ll be the ref. right now; Science, you stay in your corner and Faith, you stay in yours. There is a time and place where y’all may meet but it isn’t in a boxing ring.

-A Heartbeat