To Give Voice To Our Hearts

I've been cranky.

There, I've said it to a few hundred of my closest friends. :)

It happens.

Mostly when something is really bothering me.

When all my time honored ways of dealing with discontent aren't working.

Don't you have those? We used to call them "work-arounds", or "patches" in the computer business.

They were handy when you couldn't fix the problem right then. When you were too busy, too overwhelmed, or just too tired to look into it. So you'd work around it.

You can get to the isle of discontent from a lot of places. Worry can send you there. Hurt will buy you a ticket. And you can work around it by feeding your face (there was a time when a half gallon of Bryers..), or feeding your ego (wouldn't I look good in that...), or just retreating into a shell.

But you knew eventually you'd have to face up to what ailed you, and deal with it. And at times, it's hard to put "it" into words. It's hard to give voice to our hearts.

Today I was listening to a worship song, in the stillness of my study, and every barrier fell. Every wall I had put around my heart came down, and the love of Christ flooded in. As the music played, "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy on me." He did.

Later, I came across this verse and it said exactly what I felt.

Romans 8:26 (Msg)
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.

Our loving God gives voice to our hearts, to our very souls. When words fail us, His love never does, for He needs no words to communicate with us. We are in Him, and He is in us. It doesn't matter if we cannot say one word. When our hearts turn toward Him...

He hears.

Grace!

David

This devotional is written by David Wilson, pastor of New Hope Baptist church in Valparaiso, FL. If you find you have received this via a forward and would like to receive it regularly, or find you no longer wish to receive it, drop me an email at dwilsonfl@earthlink.net and I'll make the change to the list. If you'd like to know more about New Hope, visit our website at www.newhopevalp.org . May God bless you.