Last week we experienced a rare phenomenon when a total solar eclipse occurred on April 8th…I’ve decided to run with that theme today and also get a classic 1980’s song stuck in your for the day…with a devotional titled: Total Eclipse Of The Heart! Remember that song???…some good ol' 1983 Bonnie Tyler…
The scripture verse(s) we talk about today include: Ezekiel 36:26
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xoxox
Sarah Elizabeth
Our Faith Your Day Declaration!
Jesus, thank you so much for loving me in the way that you do! You designed me on purpose for a purpose. I want to live to my full potential today, with a mindset that honors you and a soul that seeks to know you better. Jesus I know that you are the way, the truth and the life, and I ask you to guide me and reveal to me what it is that you want to show me here, have me experience here, and learn from this season. Help mold me and shape me into the best version of me. I will live today as your vessel ready to receive your word, respond to your promptings, and pour out your overflowing love to those all around me. Please allow your thoughts to become my thoughts, your ways to become my ways and your will to become what I truly desire. Jesus if you are in it I want it and if you are not I don’t! I make myself available to you and I choose to faith this day of life! I am so grateful to be your girl! In Jesus name Amen!
Alright so first off I have a pretty crazy cool update. Remember last week when I was totally honest with you about how my download numbers are a bit of a roller coaster and overall had been down over the past several months. Well get this! The evening before last week’s episode went live, I went onto my hosting platform just to ensure everything was ready to go for the next morning, and to my utter astonishment I saw the line on my graph shoot up like a rocket! On that one day alone I had more downloads than I had over the past 2 months combined! It was the most downloads by far I have had in a single day over the entire past 3 years…that’s odd right? No girl…that there is God! Reminding me that he is in control and quote unquote “doing something here” as he keeps whispering to my heart…. and it made me so confident that I made the right decision at my crossroads. Like I said last week I truly believe it’s more about the obedience part and God can do all of the crazy cool once he knows that we are going to stay the course with him. I know that it’s just one day…but it gave me so much hope for what he can do. I had to share that with you as I was so excited at that moment! Isn’t God just so cool!
So back to eclipses…I don’t know if any of you actually stood outdoors to watch the eclipse…I personally didn’t as I was quite confident that there would be some amazing pictures of it online that I could check out later… and I was right in that there are some awesome pictures floating around online right now…it got me thinking about what an eclipse actually is…in the case of the most recent one it was the moon’s shadow which when perfect aligned with the sun created the illusion that the sun was black in the center with a blazing ring around it. The novelty of seeing something so different in the sky is what causes people to gaze longer which is what can permanently damage your eyes. Staring at the sun on any day will permanently damage your eyes, however, the sun in it’s regular form is just so normal to us that no one actually stares at it…but throw a circular shadow up against it and people are willing to risk going blind just to get a good look. This of course led my brain to the classic 80’s song Total Eclipse of the Heart…which flowed perfectly into our verse of the day…strange how the mind works sometimes eh! So let’s dive into our verse and then we are going to dig deeper to see how the state of our heart is often a great indicator of if you have blocked off the light of Jesus or if that light is shining bright and become a regular part of your life!
Ezekiel 36:26- I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
In this verse God is delivering a message to the Israealites that will come to them through the prophet Ezekiel. This is in preface to him telling them that it will be HIS spirit that he puts into them. So we can clearly see that with this new spirit…what we now understand as God’s Holy Spirit dwelling within us this in fact changes our heart. You receive a new heart in this transaction. God removes your heart of stone and gives you a heart of flesh. So what does a heart of stone look like? I envision a heart of stone as being hard…unchanging, rigid, resistant, inflexible, unyielding. Regular rock doesn’t allow much light to pass through it right? So I also see a heart of stone as being dark, heavy and cold. Sort of like the shadow that blocks out the sun in an eclipse. And a hard heart is not a happy heart, it’s not light and airy and full of joy…a hard heart kind of just sits there it doesn’t feel or become moved by emotion, and although that all sounds quite awful to me, a heart of stone sounds pretty darn appealing to a lot of people. How can that be? Well a hard heart is very hard to break, it’s resistant to fracture, and I’m sure you could rhyme off a few people in your life who are just so cold and unmoved by anything emotional that you wonder if they even have a heart at all. So how could this possibly be an option some people would choose. Well I think it’s because they don’t always realize there is another option, and a hard heart feels like a safe option at the time. After all, it’s hard to scar, hurt or cut through a heart of stone. A hard heart is less vulnerable, less exposed and less fragile, and really who wants to expose themselves to pain, hurt and loss? So why on earth would God want to remove that option from you and replace it with a heart of flesh? Flesh can be cut and torn and wounded and scared and penetrated. Flesh has nerve endings that feel physically, but we know that our heart also feels emotionally as well. So why on earth would we want to make ourselves so vulnerable? Why would God make clear that a heart of flesh is the better option? Girl have you been harboring a hard heart, have you been so afraid to be hurt that you block yourself off from feeling? Have you been so heartbroken in the past that you have decided you will not have it happen again? Have you withdrawn yourself from any relationship that could result in loss by being so cold that you won’t even give it a chance? Is God offering you a heart of flesh but you are simply too scared to take the risk?
I have a theory on why he offers us a heart of flesh and offers it as the best option…as a replacement to the heart of stone. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that a heart of flesh can heal, while a heart of stone…once broken will always remain in pieces. Think about human flesh…it can be cut, torn, bruised, burned, bloodied and broken…but then…that flesh starts to heal. Our bodies are auto-programmed to immediately suspend all other bodily functions to the minimum requirement in order to rush all focus and energy to the injured area. God has pre-programmed us on a biological level for healing. And with all healing often times the healing results in scars…visible reminders of the trauma ensued…but trauma that has been covered in new healed flesh and no longer vulnerable and exposed in the way it was at the time of injury. Scars are reminders of previous hurt…scars don’t go away because they are designed to serve as visible proof that God was at work in the hurt.
You see, God doesn’t offer us a heart of flesh with a promise of never hurting again…with a promise of never experiencing pain or loss or illness. He doesn't say that our new hearts are a bulletproof solution for all of our previous challenges…no he simply offers us a heart of flesh in conjunction with his spirit…and my sister it’s his spirit that can heal, can put the pieces back together, and can bring beauty from what is broken. A heart of stone when shattered stays shattered…in a million tiny pieces that don’t come back together unless softened, and remolded.
Consider this…all stone has a melting point…typically somewhere between 900 and 1400 degrees celsius the mineral structures within stone become pliable…in order for broken stone to be put back together incredible amounts of heat are required…it’s possible but requires very intentional effort. Someone would have to have access to that type of heat, and be able to work with the pieces of stone to have them become pliable enough to fuse back together…it would be a major process, a big endeavour…but flesh…it begins to heal without us even being aware that the process has started. Anytime I’ve ever cut myself, burned myself or broken my skin…I have never had to panic about if it would actually ever heal. I simply knew it would…I never had to intentionally tell my body to heal…it just happened…because God has pre-programmed my body and yours to do just that, and my beautiful sister we can learn so much from God’s offering for us here. He wants to take your heart of stone and exchange it for one that he can maintain for you. Sure a heart of flesh is sensitive, and emotionally that can be so difficult, but a heart of flesh has the ability to become whole again even if scars are present to serve as reminders. God is prepared to not only exchange your heart to one that is softer, gentler, more delicate and breakable…but also one that he can repair, grow, mold, change. He wants to be the healer of your heart, the nurturer of your heart and the one who stitches it back together every single time it breaks. A heart of stone hides the light…like that eclipse. You see your heart might be hardened right now for some very legitimate reasons. Life circumstances, rough past situations, little perceived hope for the future.You might be here due to a slew of things outside of your control…that hard heart is by product of the tough times. The reality is though that you choose if you stay that way or if you will allow God to exchange it for a heart of flesh. Your past has led you here but it doesn’t have to define your future. You get to choose…and trust me a total eclipse of the heart is best left in an 80’s song.