Our Hearts

It's hard for me to access my heart. Experiencing my emotions is uncomfortably vulnerable. My feelings reveal how dependent I am on other people. I become aware of how I feel jealous, angry, disappointed, or sad. There's fear, shame, guilt, and boredom too.

Disclosing these specific emotions to others can be risky. The pain of rejection, criticism, or judgment often warns me to hold back.

When you go to church, how easy is it to access your heart? In some church cultures, the formality of the service can be a barrier. In other settings, the expectation that we're relaxed and 'all good' excludes how many people are actually feeling.

As Christianity Today reports about worship music, "CCLI's SongSelect service can sort selections by theme, with 8,658 songs assigned to 'adoration' and another 19,914 to 'praise.' There aren't categories for lament or mourning; 'sorrow' has 336 songs."

I regularly return to the Psalms. 150 prayers that reveal every emotion in the human heart. All of them authorized by God as appropriate ways to approach him.

A counselor once reminded me of the time that Jesus went to Mary and Martha's home after the death of Lazarus. Jesus knows that he will raise Lazarus from the dead. But first, he stops to connect with these two women in their grief. Look at John 11:33-35:

*"When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. 'Where have you put him?' he asked. 'Lord,' they told him, 'come and see.' Jesus wept."*

**Jesus connects with their hearts before he solves their problem. God cares about your heart too.**

He cares about what you are experiencing. He has the time, the energy, and the desire to restore your innermost being to wholeness. God cares about your heart, your innermost being, and all of your feelings. He weeps with us in our pain—and he has promised to fully restore our hearts one day.