How's your heart health?

The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

This phrase from Luke 6:45 popped into my mind the other day. However, rather than it being about condemnation and judgement, I felt God showing me that it was an opportunity, a key to connect with God. I felt Him saying,

“Listen to what comes out of your mouth. It will give you an idea of what is going on in your heart. If there is anything that’s not great, it’s an indicator of something going on in your heart that needs attention. You now have the opportunity to bring that part of your heart to Me for healing and restoration.”

We all need to listen to what comes out of our mouth. Is it frustration and negativity? Bitterness? Annoyance and anger? Hurt, malice, discord, even hatred? James tells us, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing...this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring…can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.” (James 3:9-12, NIV)

If we believe we have God’s Holy Spirit in us, what comes out of our mouths should reflect this. Galatians 5 gives us a great idea of what this looks like:

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

How wonderful is our God that He gives us the opportunity for transformation, to become more like Him? However, how often do we not take this opportunity, instead resorting to our same old methods of self-protection and self-preservation?

Hebrews 3 repeatedly quotes a verse from Ps 95 - “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion…”

Why do we harden our hearts?

Again, I believe it is our self-protection. Right from our early years we experience hurt, disappointment, anger, frustration at some point. We learn that the world is not safe, that other people are not safe, and so, we find that if we want to feel safe (physically or emotionally), we have to do it for ourselves. Sometimes that is by lashing out ourselves, using our bodies, our voice or our words. Others learn it is safer to hide away. We might do a mixture of both. However we protect ourselves, it leads to walls around our hearts, or even callouses. We harden our hearts because we believe the lie that it will protect us from further pain.

Today is an opportunity. I believe that today, right now, where you are, God wants to bring healing to your heart, to take you to another level in freedom.

When we come to a place of worship, it is an interface, a place where we not only get to give God the praise and glory due to Him, but a place where He meets us. We cannot do this properly from a place where we are not prepared to be vulnerable, open and honest with Him. As scary as it can seem, when we lay all our pain, hurt and brokenness out on the table for Him to see, it is the place where healing, wholeness and freedom can come.

The invitation right now is for you to do this with God, either as I sing over you, or put on some quiet worship and spend your own time with Him. The reality is, we cannot fix ourselves. If you have stuff coming out of your mouth and heart that you know is unhelpful, unhealthy, that you know you want change in, now is the time. He can and He will – His desire is for your wholeness. After all, that’s why Jesus came, died and rose again – so you can be free.

This is a photo I took the other morning, where I saw what looked to me like a giant mouth in the sky. The words that came with it were, “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord”. Let our words, hearts and lives also reflect His glory more and more!

“The heavens declare the glory of the Lord”

(Backing track is from WORSHIP - DEEP INSTRUMENTAL WORSHIP - (NO COPYRIGHT MUSIC) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fixZNIFIbs&t=305s)

Got protection?

A number of years back, I got one of those 'too good to refuse' offers on a home security package. Somehow, I got suckered into listening to the sales spiel - I think it came with a 'free offer' (read: just listen to this guy for an hour and we will give you a free meal/holiday/gift situated somewhere you'll never get to at a time that is equally unavailable). The sales pitch consisted of painting the absolute worst case scenario about what thieves had done to other homes and would do to your home if you didn't have proper security. Fortunately, it came with a 24-hour cooling off period!

Although we have become much more savvy at picking apart sales pitches and avoiding these sorts of traps, we can still be quite easily triggered by our supposed need for protection from all the ills in the world. Whether it be protecting our finances through various forms of insurance, our bodies from the sun, sex or car accidents, we don't have to look too far through advertisements to find that many are pitched at our need for protection of some kind: the list is endless.

So why do they work?

The trigger to buy comes from our feeling the need for protection, which is the outworking of us feeling unsafe, whether through perceived or real threat. Underlying all this, though, what is really being poked is our fear button. If you don't buy this product, this is what could happen and you would do well to be afraid! 

It is not just in the physical realm that our need for protection gets triggered, though. Most likely you can also think of times where you have been surprised by your reaction to a circumstance or person that has been way beyond rational or even helpful. At some deep level, our fear response gets triggered to flight or fight and many times, our protection mechanisms have popped up before we are even aware. 

The problem is, going into protection mode is generally not something we have control over. Our responses are so innate, so automatic and so familiar that we think they are simply normal. Perhaps for you, it is putting on your big voice, talking over the antagonist, shutting them down, either through your volume, the cutting words you use, or simply denigrating everything they say. You might even use your physical body to make you seem bigger and more powerful, and you may not even be conscious that you do it. 

For others, you may withdraw inside yourself, or remove yourself physically, shut down and refuse to engage any further, hiding from whatever makes you feel fearful. 

And it is not just external responses that we use to protect us. At an even deeper level, we also engage a complex series of beliefs about people, the world and our circumstances that also help us to feel safe or protected.

In my own journey, I became aware of just how extensively my protective systems were being used in the way I interacted with others. An example that comes to mind is the belief that people are broken and that they cannot help but hurt you at some point. This is true and so appears to be helpful. In terms of protection it led me to engaging with distrust. It meant I lived from a perspective that no one was really trustworthy.

I put a barrier around my heart with this belief that said no one is safe, so don't let them get too close, then they can't hurt you.

Don't trust them too much, don't care too much about them, their opinion or their words, and then they can't hurt you. 

Along the journey, I came to a point where I realised that I was struggling to receive love, care, affection, affirmation or encouragement from anyone or anywhere. Even though people may have given these to me, I couldn't receive it because I didn't trust them. It soon became clear that this protective belief, so grounded in 'truth', not only kept the bad out, but also the good, even from God.

And this highlights the problem of our protection mechanisms. Whether we use distrust, offense, anger, hatred, bitterness, hurt (to name a few), to protect ourselves, what we are actually saying to God is that we also don't trust Him, that His opinion or provision is not enough, that He doesn't have ability or power to protect us, so we partner with something else instead. We actually replace our relationship with God with something else.

What is the answer?

It is easy to say “God”, but if you are anything like me, you might wonder what that looks like?

How do I actually engage with God as the answer?

For me, in the above scenario, as I was sharing my struggle with knowing in my head that I needed to receive from God, but fearful of the pain of hurt from others, God actually gave me the answer to the problem. What I saw was that His love was all the protection I needed. The picture was of a ‘bubble of love’ surrounding me, like a soap bubble, beautifully shimmering with ever changing colour. Even as I saw it, my spirit was asking, but how can it protect me, it is so fragile, as soon as anything touches it, it will pop! However, at the same time, God showed me that His love was actually very strong and had the ability to only allow good stuff in and keep the bad stuff out. The fiery darts of the enemy just bounced off!

Although I still find myself liable to hurt from others at times, I do know from this that I have my safe space, my strong, protective tower in the love of God. I can always head into that space to receive His love for me. Remembering that my identity is found in what He says about me and His love for me gives me strength and, hopefully, all the protection I need.

Why not ask Him what you are using to protect your heart and what He would like to replace it with, if its not Him?