Restoring Your Divided Heart
How much do you rely upon me? How does your self-sufficiency get in the way? Shall we connect anew now? I restore all things. I make all things new.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2: 8-9).
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We might say we don’t boast about the things we can do without God, yet we do them. We go our own way. We strive for independence. We appreciate feats of strength — mental, physical and emotional. We like it when things are going well enough that we don’t need God, right? Or no? Does our needing God mean things in our lives (our selves) are falling apart? Do we want more of God because of what he can do for us? Do we love him for himself? Does how we feel about God even count as love?
In this encounter, Holy Spirit invites us to take an honest, beautiful look at our posture toward God. How/when do we think about him? How much do we need him, and what does that look like? Using a practical — but imaginative — exercise using the awareness of how we go through a day in our own homes, we have the opportunity to have our hearts opened to see what it looks like to trust — or not — in God.
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To approach this encounter:
Get yourself in a comfortable, hopefully quiet, place where you can sit undisturbed.
When you are there, empty your hands, placing down everything you hold. Open your palms.
Roll your shoulders up and back.
Straighten your neck and gently stretch your back, arms, hands, fingers, legs, knees, ankles and feet.
Take a deep breath, inhaling and exhaling completely for a few moments. Relax your hands, rolling your wrists. Close your eyes. Breathe.
Draw inward now to the deep place within you where your spirit, created by God, intimately knows the Holy Spirit. Consecrate your attention — as well as your expectations — for this encounter. Give to God — bringing everything on your mind and heart — under his authority. Name each worry and concern, each distraction and burden, giving each to him to handle now:
Lord, I give you________(name specifically each concern).
I trust you with_______.
Next, spend about ten minutes contemplating the following verses, reading each one a few times and allowing Holy Spirit to lead you to hear what he is saying to your heart. If one verse, or even a few words, are captivating to you, stay there. Allow yourself to linger, paying attention to your reaction to what God is saying.
“Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:5,6).
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor 12:9).
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63).
What verse(s) did you find you wanted to linger over? What questions do you now have? What conversation do you sense God is inviting you to have with him now? (Are you ready to have it?) Get out your journal, if you’d like, and write the conversation playing out in your heart as you engage with God and these verses.
Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, when I read this particular verse, I feel….
I hear you saying this to me……
Next, as we continue to engage with God around this topic of self-sufficiency, please turn to a fresh page in your journal and draw squares or rectangles to represent, from a bird’s eye view, the 3-4 rooms where you live and where you spend the most time (emotionally, mentally and physically). Think about each room individually, and, in the middle of each square or rectangle, write a simple label indicating what that room is (e.g, kitchen, living room, closet),
After you have labeled your room, close your eyes and let your imagination take you there. Look around, in your imagination, and easily “see” and “feel” and sense what it is like to be in that room, present, inside it.
As you imagine yourself in each room, consider the following questions:
What is in each of these rooms? Which ones are tidy? Which ones are messy? (How?)
In which of these rooms is God’s presence felt? In which of these rooms do you invite him in? (What does that look like?)
How do you care for your body, mind and heart in these rooms? How do you let God fill you when you are in them? How do you rely upon him?
Consider the thoughts you usually have in each room What questions are you asking yourself? What fears do you feel? What are you wondering about?
What time of day is it when you are in each room? What is occupying your mind and heart when you are physically there at different times of the day?
Next, underneath the label for each room, add a few words that you feel accurately describe your relationship with that space. For instance, in the kitchen, you might fill in these blanks:
In this room, I think / fear / worry about _________________________.
After adding these descriptions to your room labels, consecrate each room to God — bringing each one under his authority. You may even feel Holy Spirit inviting you to consecrate your mind/body/heart when you are in that room:
Lord, I consecrate…..
Give each room back to God, and give our hearts back to God, perhaps confessing and repenting our past posture of self-sufficiency when we have been in them.
Lord, I confess my patterns of self-sufficiency; I repent of that now. Here is my heart. Sanctify this space, Fill me with you,, and help me to rely upon you more than anything else.
And then, after you’ve given each room–and your heart in that room — back to God, what more about this room does Holy Spirit want you to know and see? What does he want to rename it now?
Lord, what shall we call these rooms now?
Where, before, it was the room that I _______________________________________ now, with your help, it will be the room that I ________________________________.
Write your new names for each room in your journal.
Amen.
Worship Music
“Grateful,” from Watermark, Davy Flowers [Spotify | YouTube]
“A Place for You” from FAITHFUL, Sarah Macintosh [Spotify | YouTube]
“How He Loves,” from John Mark McMillan [Spotify | YouTube]