Storytime baby!
This year has had a lot going on, and in that I've noticed my heart starting to harden and go bitter in a lot of ways. I was letting things in that were taking up too much space, and I would keep trying to hand these over to God, but still closed myself off to Him. It was kind of like the raccoon protecting its small trash pile - not something to be proud of and defending! It seems pretty petty being mad at God but I definitely held to that for a while. Even though I was telling myself that it was better to let Him in and start making changes, I would continue to fall back into old habits. This created a spiral of "Well will it ever get better" so then I started chasing whatever 'now' happiness I could. This didn't leave much room for God in my mind.
It got to a point where I could picture myself handing over my heart (again), but at this point it was literally just a rock. I'm not a geologist so feel free to correct me, but rocks don't really serve a purpose. They don't do much, and you can't do much with them. It felt like I was giving God what was left, and what was left wasn't much.
Then it hit me - He's a SCULPTOR.
He's exactly the right person to give your rock-heart to, because He knows what to do to still make something beautiful and purposeful. I may have been trying to cut things out to make something worthwhile, but was just scratching the surface and leaving it looking messy and beaten - He is a sculptor who, when we see a misshapen pile of stone, sees what needs to be chipped away and fashioned to reveal the desired form. Michelangelo said "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." I really find it crazy to think about how a sculptor can have such a sharp idea of how to create what they are seeking to produce when it literally starts off as a rock. There's just something so much more daunting to me about taking parts away in order to create something, rather than in the sense of God as a potter (Isaiah 64.8), where there are aspects of adding and subtracting, but it is largely shaping what is already there.
There is a lot of metaphors in this but the point is - you are not too far gone. Your heart is not too hard for God to still use. It doesn't matter how long you've been running away - God is still right there when you turn around. I'll expand on this in another blog but God has already placed in you everything that He needs to work in and through you, you just have to let Him.
So if you're at the point where you're needing to cry out to God, for the first time or for yet another time, He is ready!! The Psalms is one example of battling between praise and desperation, that open conversation with God to say "Hi, I'm coming back again." He is still there with open arms, ready to continue doing life with you.
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