This past few months I had been considering what the next
few months would entail. I had many thoughts running around in my head. These thoughts
even blocked access to the box of nothing. That place where every man can go
and not have to think about anything. (Men reading this don’t deny this truth,
you know we have that box in our heads) I had thoughts about where I am going
to live, what the week ahead is going to look like, whether I got that job or
not. I had thoughts about my devotional I had read that day. I had thoughts
about what to eat that night. And money thoughts, the list could go on, in fact
in my head it did.
I was really struggling to put these thoughts into any sort
of order and it was driving me mad. So I prayed that God would give me some peace
in my head. He did but when He did He also put this thought into my head.
“Where is your heart?”
“What?” I said
“Where is your heart?”
Where is my heart? Hmm, that is a good question? My heart is…..
My heart is all about my fiancé Jayne, my heart is all about…
Huh! I haven’t really thought about it. I had just assumed I
knew where my heart was. I thought I knew what the control of my heart was. I
thought it was God, well I knew that I wanted God to be the master of my heart.
But then it dawned on me that I had other things that often got in the way of
my desire to have God in my heart. It was the sinful nature of my heart that
has crowded my heart with many meisms. I was focusing on me and what was best
for me, how these things affected me. My treasure was in the world, my treasure
was in the things that moth and rust eat away at and that thieves come and
steal as Jesus puts it in Matthew 6. I thought I had my
mind set on things of the eternal nature. I thought I was looking to “thy
Kingdom come”, but I guess I had fooled myself.
In Ecclesiastes 3, Solomon tells us that we are hardwired
for Eternity,
“He has made everything beautiful
in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot
find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11
ESV)
Solomon had everything; wealth,
women and more than enough stuff. He also had wisdom, and this wisdom meant
that he realised that everything he had strived for was meaningless. He realised
that eternity was were his focus should have been. He realised that even trying
to have figure out what God was doing, or had done was silly. He realised his
heart was not in the right place. He reaised the need for God’s grace.
Yes, we have sinful hearts and
are surrounded by the many meistic things which make it easy for us to slip
into the meistic mind-set. The good news is, that God’s grace is sufficient, it
is by grace we have been saved. It is by grace that we are humbled to and
reminded about the true hardwiring we have been designed to look to. Paul Tripp
a pastor and author wrote this about grace and I still reread it every-so-often
to make me think and be thankful about. So let me share it with you:
“So grace is a story and grace is
a gift. It is God's character and it is your only hope. Grace is a transforming
tool and a state of relationship. Grace is a beautiful theology and a wonderful invitation.
Grace is a life-long experience and a life-changing calling. Grace will turn
your life upside down while giving you a rest you have never known. Grace will
require you to face your unworthiness without ever making you feel unloved.
Grace will make you finally
acknowledge that you cannot earn God's favour, and it will once and for all
remove your fear of not measuring up to his standards. Grace will humble you
with the fact that you are much less than you thought you were, even as it
assures you that you can be far more than you had ever imagined. You can be
sure that grace will put you in your place without ever putting you down.
Grace will enable you to face
shocking truths about yourself that you have hesitated to consider, while
freeing you from being self-consciously introspective. Grace will confront you
with profound weaknesses, and at the same time bless you with new-found
strength. Grace will tell you again and again what you aren't, while welcoming
you again and again to what you can now be. Grace will make you as
uncomfortable as you have ever been, while offering you a more lasting comfort
than you have never before known .
Grace will work to drive you to
the end of yourself, while it invites you to fresh starts and new beginnings.
Grace will dash your ill-founded hopes, but never walk away and leave you
hopeless. Grace will decimate your little kingdom of one as it introduces you
to a much, much better King. Grace will expose to you the extent of your
blindness as it gives you eyes to see what you so desperately need to see.
Grace will make you sadder than you have ever been, while it gives you greater
cause for celebration than you have ever known.
Grace enters your life in a
moment and will occupy you for eternity. You simply cannot live a
productive life in this broken-down world unless you have a practical grasp of
the grace you have been given.”( http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/grace-right-here-right-now)
So let us remember that we are hardwired to look to the things eternal,
and through this gift of grace we can be guided back to looking to eternity
when the world blinds us and misdirects us. Thanks be to God for his sufficient
grace.
