About that new heart
Dear God, this is Kelley.
You promise us a new heart (cf. Ezekiel 36:26). You promise to take from us our stony hearts and give us new ones. What You say isn’t for show. What You say, You mean. So, God, what is really with this “new heart?” What does that look like in our lives? How does that change anything, and what do we have to do in order for it to happen?
These are good questions, God, because most of us hear Your promise, and we think it just happens automatically. It doesn’t. Duh. We may get inspired for a bit, but give it an hour or two and we’re back to our old selves.
Three things:
It’s a process. You don’t just swap our ugly, fixed, stony ways of seeing ourselves, other people, and the world (all applications of the human heart) for ones like Yours. It takes time.
We have to participate. We have to come to You daily, hourly even, and open ourselves to Your grace, open ourselves to the swap.
We have to practice with the new. When we experience the signs of a new heart — compassion where compassion wasn’t before; wisdom where it wasn’t before; ease where anxiety was before — we can’t go running back to our old ways of perceiving. We can’t convince the compassion, the wisdom and the ease, they’re all wrong!
I imagine it delights You when we keep coming back to renew this receptivity and to thank You for the new heart. May we delight You a bit more.
Reflection
What do you need to change in order to receive the new heart God offers?
Prayer
Dear God, it isn’t easy to receive a new heart. When our old ones are wounded, we tend to put up walls, walls made of fear and prejudice and misinformation, anything to keep us stuck. May we see, Lord! May we keep coming back to You to see, to receive that new heart, and to allow it to change us. Amen.