The water on the sound this morning is eerily still, appearing without movement. So much so, it serves as a natural mirror reflecting everything within my eyesight. The boats in the marina. The birds flying above. The sun hanging in the sky. My reflection, from the edge of the dock.
Proverbs 27:19, "As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person."
Looking out over the stillness of the waters, I thank God for His reflection in my life today. Not so long ago, it wasn't so. I remember a time my heart desired to solely please the flesh -- validation, acceptance, perfection, and financial security to name a few. Over time, the worldly way of living slowly began to mean more to me than my relationship with Jesus.
In my late 30's, I realized that I had become a church girl with a hardened heart that reflected life for my selfish gain. I knew the right things to say and wanted nothing more than to do all the right things, yet my life was dead because of my transgressions. I remember thinking, "Who have I become?"
While I had given my life to Christ at a young age, for the first time I called on God to come, search my heart and show me the very things that were dead to Him.
“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back from captivity.”
Jeremiah 29: 13,14
He came.
He came in the small moments of everyday life reminding once again of His truth. Slowly, I began to relinquish my life back into God’s care. It was a process of daily surrender. When the time of testing came, I found myself praying a prayer of surrender then waiting. I have learned how God uses the hardest seasons to turn our eyes and heart away from every earthly thing so that we can turn solely to the Lord. It is here, where the ground is most fertile to grow our faith best as we learn to trust our Heavenly Father with every aspect of our life. It is here things hoped for become certain.
A few years have passed and I was 40 years old the night I cried out for God to rescue me. Nine years later, I am in a state of constant daily surrender. Surrendering to Christ saved my soul and softened my heart. Because of what I am becoming, I have witnessed this verse in my life.
“And I will give you a new heart, with a new spirit, one of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26
When is the last time you asked God to spiritually search your heart? Let me encourage you to trust Him with the very thing that belongs solely to Him.
Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united in Christ, is any comfort from his love, is any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one is Spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interest of the others. In your relationship with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on the cross. Philippians 2:1-8
Heather Lamp, 2019
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