5 May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.
I never thought of my heart needing direction before reading this verse today. But when I think about it in retrospect, I have allowed this process many times in my life. Before I was a Jesus-follower I allowed my heart to be directed, guided if you will, by many factors. My peers guided my heart into activities that make me blush. I was a teenager after all. My drive to be accepted by this group drove me toward sin and its devastating effects. My family upbringing drove me in a very different direction, one that has served to help me stay the course in many situations. I did not want to disappoint my parents so I did not do all the things I might have done if their influence was not a driving factor in my life. The military became a factor that drove me to certain behaviors. I hate physical exercise, but of course the military has a different plan for my life. Then Jesus entered the control room of my heart, and the direction changed rapidly and drastically. I was in control of a life careening toward distruction, but I needed to yield control to Jesus. That has been my struggle ever since that day. I have a delusion that I am in control of my life, that I can gather enough strength, wisdom, and information to be able to see the future clearly and make a choice. But I have found that if I let go of the steering wheel, Jesus will direct my heart to the Love of God and toward the ability to stay the course in the middle of the storm. These two things are really what my heart needs. I need to know the love of God in a much greater measure. To know that love, that acceptance, is really the object of everyone’s quest in life. We want to be able to be fully ourselves and know that our relationship is intact. We also want to know that we will make it through the storms of life, even the storm of death, and that we will come out on the other side intact. If we are willing to let God direct our hearts, direct our thought life, our desires, our hopes and dreams, then the greatest longings of our heart will be fulfilled.
The Arnold Journey 