It certainly has been a while since I have written. This is not for any specific reason, lots of life changes, seasons of learning, and lack of prompting is to blame I suppose. However, this morning as I did my Bible study a truth hit me like a sack of potatoes straight to my forehead... a truth that many of you may already have understood, a truth that I thought I knew. But as I read the scripture prompted to me by the study it felt like a new revelation, oh how I love it when God's Word comes to life and pricks my heart! The scripture that I was reading was in Ezekiel, though the concept is written about in several areas. Before I tell you the passage let me explain why this is so significant, for the past few months I have been delving into a Bible Study with a group of women from my Sunday School class at church. The study is entitled "No Other God's", it deals with idols, functional gods that we place in our hearts and lives that take the place of the only One and True God. At first I had a hard time identifying what idols that God was trying to reveal to me through this study. As the weeks have passed it has become increasingly clear that approval is the idol that drowns out the importance of God in my life. Nothing will derail me faster than someone disapproving of me and my heart, this can be either blatantly or passively by simply ignoring my existence. If you have read my blog for any amount of time you probably already know this about me. This is not a new or novel concept that God has been dealing with in my heart. However, for some time now I had decided that in order to fix this issue myself I would simply control how many people were close enough in my life to be able to hurt me in this way. Sounds simple enough, logical even. The issue is this was not a permanent fix to this problem. It was a temporary solution to the idol of approval in my heart. The idol was still there, I was just going to avoid it. Onto the passage that spoke most directly to me, it was Ezekiel 36:25-26. God's Word says: 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Did you catch that? He gives us the solution to getting rid of the idols in our hearts, PERMANENTLY! The answer is Jesus. The answer is allowing God to replace my heart of stone with a heart of flesh. Kelly Minter, the author of "No Other Gods" summed up my feelings on this subject perfectly: "The bottom line is this: we don't have the power in ourselves to dismantle the idols of our hearts. Only by the power and grace of God can such a thing be accomplished." There you have it. God gently and tenderly taking hold of my body and saying "Stop striving so hard to do things that you cannot do my child. Let me, let me help you." I don't know about you but that is like a deep breath after running a marathon. Lord, help me to give you my heart for a transplant. Make room for You to be the One and Only God in my heart.
