I personally find it very easy to live my life, following the same daily routine, without questioning or challenging my assumptions. Well… I guess that’s why they are assumptions. But sooner or later something comes along that doesn’t fit and no matter how hard I try to push it down it just keeps resurfacing.
I grew up in a Christian home going to church almost every Sunday. I became a Christian when I was 10 years old but I still remember the love and joy I experienced in the first few months. I really felt like things were going to change and great things would happen. However, it wasn’t long before my efforts to live as I knew I should: be disciplined and become more like Jesus, became a struggle where I felt like I was on an endless cycle of sin – guilt – confession – forgiveness – relief – sin… I didn’t feel like I was getting the victory that was often talked about in church. I continued trying my best because, like people said, I should “Trust the facts, not my feelings”.
I remember talking to multiple different leaders within my church about my struggle with a particular sin and the advice was always along the same lines: pray, read my bible more, try to avoid temptation, be accountable to someone and “keep a short account with God” by asking for forgiveness for my sin regularly.
I continued trying to clean myself up but never seemed to make any lasting progress. Sure I would do OK for a while but in the end I would inevitably end up back in the same place of failure. I genuinely tried my best and would pray with tears that God would change me and take away my struggle. God didn’t answer me in the way I thought he would… And I’m so glad he didn’t.
Ironically, this struggle lead me to seek counselling outside the church and thankfully a very good counsellor opened my eyes to begin to see things from a heart perspective (not intellectual facts or emotional feelings). And this heart journey is ultimately what has renewed the love and joy I experienced in the beginning.
So if you are struggling to be the Christian you know you should be or feel like you have lost the fire of your love when you first came to Christ or maybe you just feel like God is far off and distant… Know that you have come to the right place… A place where we can share our hearts and journey together.
So… Where to start? Let’s make sure we are on the same page: what do I mean when I talk about the heart? It astonished me when I realised that the word “heart” is used in the bible over 750 times, and yet, most people would probably struggle to give a definition for the heart and I personally can’t ever remember it being explained in church. In my next post I’ll give my description of the heart and see where it leads from there.
Hearts on a Journey 