The Great Exchange

When I taught Children's Sunday School, I used to use the light switch to teach about faith and doubt. It's hard to have both at the same time because they are antonyms (once a teacher always a teacher..). It's hard to have the light switch on and off at the same time, much like faith and doubt. You can have one or the other, but you can't have both. You know if you have read any of my blogs, I'm a visual learner..so that's how I tend to teach. Well after reading a post on Facebook last night, the title from this blog came...then last night as I lay trying to sleep...God painted the picture as only He can. It's in line with what I've been reading over the last couple of months in a couple of books and online devotionals. (I love it when God lines up what He's pouring into you, just when He knows...) 

When we ask God to come into our hearts, He moves in and takes residence. He comes into our space, but it's not exactly all His just yet. You see it's a lot like moving into a home. It takes time, some rearranging, some cleaning, some moving things into the place they need to be, some making it your own...before that house becomes your home. It takes living in that place some time too, before you start to see just how things need to be arranged. (It's also that way in the classroom for teachers. We start the year with our rooms arranged one way, and then after a couple of weeks sometimes they get moved and rearranged as we settle into the space for the year). 

As God begins to make our hearts His home over the years in relationship with us, there is some rearranging, some cleaning, some moving around that ends up being done. It's not pleasant and honestly it hurts in the process, but it's how God turns your heart into His heart. We find ourselves praying and singing for God to make us more like Him, but do we really realize just what that means. It's a surrendering of ourselves in return for becoming more like Him. God knows our hearts...He knows when we are holding on to those parts of us that He's been trying to pry our fingers off of. Hear my heart, the duct tape will come off eventually and the only place to take Him to, is that place. 

As God makes our hearts His own, He makes us into who He planned for us to be from before we were born. As our hearts become more like His, the desire to please our audience of One becomes our hearts cry and in doing that some of the things that used to be in plain view, start to grow strangely dim...and what used to be dim becomes easier to see. 

It's hard to hold two things at once, worry and peace, faith and doubt, passion and people pleasing, anxiety and confidence, fear and trust...it's hard to hold our hearts as we know them and His heart in us.  The struggle will be there always, but there is a strength that will begin to overtake us moment by moment as we learn to quiet the flesh and let the Spirit take over. There is a peace that comes when we start to see that the rat race was never His dream for us all along, just the obedience walk. It's a journey that's all our own....

There is another blog coming tomorrow that I actually started before this one. It's based off of the song Broken Things by Matthew West. This great exchange isn't easy...only God knows the many times I have laid things down only to discover I'm still carrying even more that needs to be laid at His Feet. It's what He meant when He called us to die to our flesh daily. It's a will exchange knowing that peace only comes with one of them. It's a feeling exchange knowing that even when you don't feel it, you can believe what He says about you.