Trusting God with our hearts

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding Proverbs 3: 5

When we become Christians we talk about giving our lives or our heart to the Lord but these two expressions are not the same. Giving our lives to Jesus talks about living for him instead of ourselves; we prioritise him in our lives so he becomes the most important person in our daily existence. Giving our hearts to Jesus is about how we feel and think about him and others. It is about letting Jesus touch and heal our emotions so we reflect his love and kindness to others.  

When I gave my heart to God, it was strongly encased in a hard shellto protect it because I had decided that due to past wounds, no one would hurt me or get too close to me again. By nature I am soft hearted but I felt people didn’t care about me that much; they had hurt me and so I let this hard shell surround my heart. I had to ask Jesus to take away the hardness.  In addition my heart had some very sore scabs from the wounds I had suffered from misunderstandings and thoughtlessness on the part of others. I had to ask Jesus to heal my heart and with his love and grace he has soaked away the hard shell and the sore scabs so my heart is much softer now towards both him and others.

I also had to learn to trust him to look after my heart and protect it from the inevitable hurts, pains and disappointments of this life. This was a really hard thing to do because by entrusting my heart to Jesus it felt like it was sitting exposed on the palm of his hand. It made me feel very vulnerable. However Jesus has proved faithful and he has protected me so when the knocks and hurts of life come, I have not had to withdraw in anger or silence from others. I have been able to stay open to them knowing God has my heart firmly and safely in his hands.

It can be a very daunting thing to give our hearts to Jesus but he wants us to walk in freedom not hidden away behind our own shells of protection, nursing our wounds but to walk openly being able to show love and grace even in the face of unkindness knowing that God will protect and look after us.