Day 337: When the Heart Goes Bad!

John 14:17

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Philippians 4:7

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Today let’s talk about the heart, and the condition of it. Sometimes our heart can go bad. Not in a sense that sin has completely taken us over, which is one way a heart can go bad but in a sense that sometimes it’s too broken. What I mean by that is, we go on day by day without ever really addressing what is going on within us until it is too late. Our hearts become so broken and battered that we begin to think that there is no way out. Many of us know what a broken heart feels like, and sometimes that can seem to carry on for a very long time, the heart takes time to heal. It sometimes seems like the pain just keeps coming. We all want our hearts to remain healthy and fresh and we even get to the points when we try to convince ourselves that we are okay when we’re not. The truth about life is, sometimes it hurts, and that means our hearts will be broken. But the truth about Christ is He can put the pieces back together and make it stronger than it has ever been.

For those of you who have had your heart broken, you know what can come from it. There is so much pain that takes root, anger starts to arise, then bitterness, and unforgiveness, then hate. When our hearts are ruined because we cannot seem to get past the pain we throw ourselves into a deep and dark world of hurt. I know these things are hard to get over, I know it hurts, but somewhere we have to find hope that we will be okay again. That hope that I’m speaking about is only found in Christ. Christ is the light and the only way out of this deep, dark, painful tunnel. We cannot dwell in our pain it will get us nowhere. Facing the source of our pain is going to hurt in the moment but it’s part of the process of healing. We are in need of some healing to take place. We are all or have all been walking around with our heart’s light going more dim as we go.

I want to talk about how some of us are walking around with a rotten heart and it’s not completely our fault. Sometimes we put our hearts on the line and they get ripped to shreds and we continue to put our hearts on the line for others and continue to get hurt. Some of us are suffering from bitterness and guilt that is eating away at us. Some of us are holding grudges and harboring unforgiveness. Some of us can’t seem to let go of the things ruining us. Some of us are letting fear run wild in our hearts. I name all of these things because we are walking around everyday not dealing with what is really going on in our hearts. We can see everything in everyone else but we tend to overlook it in ourselves.

We live in a time where mental health has become more widely spoken about. But we also live in a generation that is told by older generations that we are too soft. We’re too emotional Therefore we hide our feelings we cover them up because we do not want to come off as week. Let me tell you right now, if no one else wants to deal with your broken heart, God will. If no one else wants to talk you off a ledge God will. There are too many people in our generation that are suffering because their heart has gone bad. Too many people are walking around like zombies because they do not have it in them to love anymore because they have been hurt so much. We are walking around with fake smiles trying to be okay because society says we have to be.  This is not the life God wants us to live. Yes we will go through seasons of pain, yes our hearts will be broken but God is a healer. It is not His will for us to harbor that pain or let it manifest in us. There is peace with the Father, there is healing with the Father. We get to a point where we begin to project our feelings onto God. We forget that the one who created the heart is the only one who can completely heal it.

All this to say, we have to check in with our hearts and be honest about what is really going on within us. There so much pain in each and every one of us, but trust God with your heart. He will protect it and guard it. God gave us feelings for a reason, he gave us emotions for a reason. He gave us tears for a reason. Do not allow your feelings and pain to be suppressed because of what someone else thinks. God cares for them. He sees every tear, He hears every prayer. Look for hope in Him.

Reflection/Prayer Time

Take the time to respond in whatever way you feel led. Pour your heart out to God tonight, if any of this resonated with you talk to God about it and allow Him to heal your heart. God is a healer, he wants to give you peace, let Him do it.

I love you so much! I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 338!

Day 311: Guard Your Heart, Don't Block It

Proverbs 4:23

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

Ezekiel 36:26

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Block- to obstruct

Guard- To keep safe from harm or danger , protect

I’m sure many of us have lived by Proverbs 4:23, as we should. We have set our sights on protecting our hearts. So we will not get hurt, or so that it will not be abused. Sometimes we’re trying to protect ourselves from the wrong things. What I mean is that we sometimes have our hearts so guarded that we forget how to let those guards down. Guarding our hearts becomes building walls around it so that nothing and no one can come in. Our generation is so afraid of being hurt that we would rather be numb. We would rather not feel anything. I understand that heartbreak happens, at this age many of us have had our hearts broken at least once, but we’re still here. God put our hearts back together and shows us everyday how we should be loved.

We have so many walls built, from hurt, disappointment, betrayal, abandonment, the list can go on and on. It like every time something happens to us we build a new wall and eventually our hearts become unreachable. We forget how to feel, we don’t know how to love or be loved because we are so guarded. We are so blocked off from everything that we don’t even let God in.

Why are we so afraid to let love in? In the sense that God is love, no one can love us the way God will, but sometimes we can be so guarded that we can’t even knock down the walls to let Him in. The amazing thing about God is, He will knock those walls down and pursue our hearts. God wants our hearts, He loves us so much, but we sometimes turn away from that love. We turn away because we view God’s love through natural eyes, not seeing  that His love is supernatural. We don’t realize that God will love us more than the people who broke our hearts, He will not break our hearts, He will not stop loving us. Sometimes we allow our experiences to influence of perception of who God is. When the truth is, our experience with God should change how we perceive the world, ourselves, and other people. We cannot learn to love properly if our heart is caged by walks we’ve built to try to protect it. When we do that we distance ourselves from God and His people.

With that being said we must not assume that everyone is out to get us.

I remember a point in my life where I was so guarded that I wouldn’t allow anyone to love me, or get close to me because everyone that said they loved me turned on me and walked out of my life in an instant. After that I assumed that everyone was the same way, I thought everyone was just going to break my heart. I made it very hard for people to love me, as well as for me to love people because I could not bare the pain of having my heart shattered again. It was like anyone new I met would have to go through a trial run before I would let them completely in, just to make sure they weren’t going to hurt me. I closed myself off because up unto that point in my life had found that love hurts. Then God showed me, love should not hurt in this way. He showed me how I should be loved, by sent people, good, genuine people into my life that would not be there to use me, or hurt me, but people who would wholeheartedly love me. It threw me, because I was expecting them to walk out of my life, and treat me the same the others did. But they didn’t, God sent them to show me what true love looks like.

-Dyamond

A lot of what we go through when it comes to this is, we cannot trust people, we refuse to trust people or we find it very hard to trust people. Also the inability to completely trust and give our hearts to Christ. The first thing we must do is trust God with our hearts. He made the human heart, He tends to every need. If anyone knows how to love us, it’s God. We have to trust that God will not allow us to hurt beyond what we can handle. And yes sometimes we will go through heartbreak, it’s a part of life, trusting God with our heart doesn’t mean we’ll never hurt again, it means that in those moments we trust God to put us back together, and so much better than before. We trust Him to love us through the pain and aches.

All this to say, we cannot allow what has happened to us in the past influence how we love people in the present and the future. Guard your heart, and protect but don’t block it and lock it away. God wants our hearts but we have to be willing to trust Him with it.

Reflection

1. Have you ever had your heartbroken?
2. Did it cause you to close yourself off?
3. Have you ever found yourself guarding your heart from God?
4. Why do think it is so hard for us to trust God and people with our hearts?
5. Discuss this.

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer, have a conversation with God about what we discussed today. Search yourself and see if you are blocking your heart and let God in.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 312!