I’m so thankful that God is always willing to speak to me … I only have to be willing to listen!
Just a little while ago, I was out walking Lindi (our blue heeler). I really wanted to get “pumped up” and make it good workout, so I set Pandora to my Third Day station. It was just Lindi and I today … temp in the low 60’s … overcast sky … slight breeze. The music started playing and we started trottin’!
And it was good.
I was listening to praises being lifted up to God … my face was smiling … my soul was soaring! (And, yes, Lindi, was behaving pretty good on the walk, too.)
And then, a song came on by Tenth Avenue North, “Hold My Heart.” I confess, at first, I thought I was listening to a different group. As I was trying to figure out exactly who was singing, God directed me to the chorus:
One tear in the driving rain,
One voice in a sea of pain.
Could the Maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breaking heart?
One life, that’s all I am.
Right now I can barely stand.
If You’re everything You say You are,
Would You come close and hold my heart?
Wow! Talk about putting into perspective where I fit in the cosmos.
I think about the times I’ve called out to the Lord, when I’ve been driven to my knees by a heavy burden, when the tears were flowing and didn’t seem like they’d ever stop. When my heart felt like it had shattered into a million pieces that “all the king’s horses and all king’s men could never put back together again.”
Yet … no matter how much my pain consumed me — where my every thought and focus was on what was happening in my world … there were literally millions of others hurting the same — for their own reasons. I was — I am — one life among billions. Did God really hear me crying out? Was He truly concerned that my heart — among millions of other beating hearts — was breaking?
Yes!
I immediately recalled the scripture that has been in my thoughts for so many months — consuming me and not sure how to put my thoughts into words … until now. Meditate on the words found in Hosea 11:8 – 9:
“How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I make you like Zeboiim?
My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.
I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man — the Holy One among you.”
I read these words and I hear the pain and anguish coming from my God. He, too, is in my pain … His heart is breaking … He’s been betrayed, lied to and forgotten. Yet … yet … yet … He loves His children so much, He can’t destroy them. He can’t live without them. He loves them — us … me — so much that He sent His Son to die in my place.
A love like that knows my voice — whether it’s lifted up in praise or weighed down with pain. A love like that sees me has His most precious child … I’m the most important person to Him — and so are you. God definitely hears me my I cry out. I matter because I’m loved beyond all measure.
God won’t give me up. I pray that I never give Him up. I can face each day — no matter what the world wants to throw my way — because I know Who’s holding my heart.
Will you let Him hold yours as well?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEz2PsLJ-RI&feature=related
May everything we say and do be pleasing and acceptable in His sight.
Love love love!
Thanks, Cassie