Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Getting your heart where your body is.

Here’s the problem. 

We love people deeply.  Friends and family.  And then often God calls us to leave the friends and family we love so we can serve Him someplace else. 

So there’s this love for God that makes our mouths say, Yes, I’ll go, Lord.  The suitcases get packed.  The feet head out for a new place. 

But while the suitcases get unpacked in the new place, the heart commits a heinous mutiny and longs for the people in the old place. 

I remember when we moved to Kalispell, Montana from Texas where we had lived for seven years.  Matt and I fell in love in Texas, had our first child there.  The friendships were family-deep. 

When we moved here I held a secret distain for the new people.  I didn’t want them.  I couldn’t love them.  Give me the old people back.  The comfortable Texas people.  The ones who know me.  

Yet here I am 17 years later, and I do believe many of you reading this blog post today are the new people.  The Kalispell people.  Now my heart is tied so tightly with yours that I can’t imagine life without you. 

It’s sure hard to love new people, though.  To get to a new place and work to make friends.  To make mistakes and wonder if these new people will show grace to you the way the old ones did. 

It’s easy to pack a suitcase for your clothes and transport them, but it’s not so easy to pack up your heart and bring it along to the new place.  It weighs more, and it’s hard to carry.  It’s that last box that gets unpacked. 

Colossians 3:23 (NIV) says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” 

All your heart. 

We can’t start a new something for the Lord in a new place and not bring our hearts along. 

Today I’m praying for each of you who is in the new place.  Praying God will give you the strength to let your heart (not just your body) settle there.

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