Song of My Heart's Devotion

petals spread to the sun

For many years, seventeen, in fact, I served in a capacity at church to which I was both uncalled and unqualified. It was beyond stressful--and while I improved at it, I topped out eventually, even though I practiced faithfully, because I just wasn't GOOD at it.

The service (piano playing, if you were wondering) was truly needed, and I didn't say no, so I don't blame anyone for that. I learned things about myself that I guess I could not have learned any other way. If God had wanted me in that position, He would have given me the talents required, and the emotional abilities to faithfully serve. There was no joy in serving Jesus in this area. There was only anxiety, and eventual ill health.

I was performing a job that was not mine. In fact, I've taken on a series of obligations and expectations in my life that weren't mine. Most of the time, no one asked me to. I just saw what was needed, and did it.

A very handy person to have in your ministry.

A very unhappy person to have in your ministry.

Why? Because the Church is not supposed to be about round pegs smashed down to fit into square holes. Burned-out bodies just going through the motions.

I Corinthians 12 says God distributes the gifts to the body of believers--not equally, perhaps, in our earthly eyes, but justly. According to His inscrutable plan. But nowhere are we guaranteed a person qualified to fit every position in our specific ministry plans.

When I finally had my first breakdown, and we left our home church, guess what? Someone else eventually filled the multiple roles Mike and I had left. It took a long time for me to forgive myself for leaving a job I was never meant to have.

My job, then and now and throughout endless ages to come, is the task of all Creation. To to sing praise to the Creator.

But all the bits and pieces of this amazing world don't all sing the same melody line. Instead, a cacophonous, spontaneous, glorious jumble of a million million voices fill the skies. The whole world sings His matchless worth.

The mountains and the hills break forth with singing.

The trees shout and clap their hands.

The flowers dance and bob in time with the breeze.

The oceans partner with the shores in perfect harmony.

The sound of singing planets is different from the voice of birds and the croak of frogs. And the tune the wind whispers is not the one the clouds cry, or the sound the rainbow streams.

Creation sings with everything in its being, with its whole uncomplicated heart, unable to do anything but shout GLORY and HOSANNA and AWESOME is our GOD. And I raise my music along with the rest--only don't ask me to use the piano as my instrument to do so!

Yes, my music is my voice (in a choir or congregation, not a solo).

But there is also music in my creativity (in the craft room, not the kitchen).

My music is in my ability to turn my business talents into funds that further the work of the Lord.

My music is to love my husband with abandon, committed to his good with every fiber of my being.

My music is to mother my special children with kindness, compassion, strength and support.

My music is to explain, educate and equip the world for my extraordinary children, with humor and grace.

My being sings best when I am allowed and allowing myself to be me. My passions, my heart, my talents, who I am. Not who anyone else wishes me to be. Not the perfect pastor's daughter I still expect myself to be. My narrative. My own words. My own tune.

I am just a flower in a field, dancing before the Creator, petals spread to the sun. Doing what flowers do best. Exactly what they were intended for.

"I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live. As long as I have breath, I will sing unto the Lord." Psalm 104:33

Create in me a clean heart

Earlier this week I shared how much I love the word "create." So when I read Psalms 51:10, "Create in me a clean (pure) heart, O God," the word "create" naturally leaps out at me. 

Why does God have to CREATE a clean heart in me? Because it doesn't come naturally! I was not born with a clean heart. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary's primary definition of the word "create" reads, "to bring into existence."

This pure heart was something that did not exist! God must create it, and what's more, He must continually re-create it because I can do nothing to either create it or maintain it in my own power. All I can do is ask Him for that clean heart.

Our need for a clean heart is so undervalued by today's lukewarm Christians. When your heart is pure and known sins are confessed, there are no roadblocks to fellowship with God through His Holy Spirit. You'll be open to His leading and blessing, as well as His hand on your shoulder, stopping you from misplacing your priorities and being deceived by your own heart.

If you read the rest of the Psalm 51, David speaks of what he will be able to do when his heart is pure before the Lord. He'll be able to be an example and testimony to unbelievers (vs 13). His heart will be free to rejoice and sing before the Lord (vs 14). He will be able to enjoy renewed closeness with God from the place of repentance and redemption (vs 15-17). It stands to reason that the flipside is also true. We are not able to do those things when our hearts are not clean.

I have been in that place, where I could not sing in front of my Savior because I harbored sin in my heart.

The soloist fell silent.

The impure heart had to be dealt with before my body, created in God's image, was free to sing His praise.

I needed that clean heart re-created again in me. And it took me a long, long time to admit it.

A long period of apparent, outward blessing but hidden, inward barreness.

My prayer for you today, as a fellow believer desiring to serve the Lord, is that you will come to the realization that David did. A clean heart must brought about from scratch by God, and all we can do is desire it and ask for it. Do you desire it? Have you asked for it?

Let me caution you that the process won't be pretty. Sins may come to light under the illuminating torch of the Holy Spirit you invited in, sins that you might very well rather have never had seen the light of day. It won't be pretty or pleasant to experience, because all sin is ultimately ugly and unpleasant in the end.

I'm so thankful we can cling to the final phrase of verse 17: "A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." The unclean, impure heart invites judgement. But the repentant heart is always--ALWAYS-- received with compassion and mercy, and replaced with a clean one (I John 1:9).

Father, help me be quick to realize when my heart isn't clean. Help me be even quicker to admit I cannot cleanse it on my own and to ask You to re-create it. Renew a right spirit within me so that I may be a testimony of Your grace, sing without being strangled by my sin, and live the abundant life for which You have called and redeemed me. I ask this in the Name of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Creating isn't just for crafters

I love the word "create." Teaching women to be creative with papercrafts is my "other" full time job--the one that doesn't involve taxiing the children, searching for lost socks, and whipping up a five-course dinner. (Just kidding about the dinner. I usually only do four courses. I know, total slacker.) 

I use the word "create" and "creative" literally on a a daily basis either aloud or in writing. You know what drives me nuts? I hear way too many of my friends say they "just aren't creative." Uh-uh sister. You can't pull that one on me. It's simply not true!

Part of the reason people believe that is because we believe mistakenly creativity is connected to Art. That's "art" with a capital A! You know, the GOOD stuff--not the "eye of the beholder" stuff. Or maybe we had the cranky art teacher at school-- you know, the one who made you color in the lines and forced you to use the boring skin tone crayons instead of appreciating your turqoise and orange family members.

Thankfully, there are many ways to be creative that have nothing to do with drawing or painting or crafting.  Creativity is just a way of looking at things and imagining an outcome. Never thought of it like that?

Your creativity might flourish when you open the fridge at 4:30 one afternoon and pull together a good meal from odds and ends. It might shine when you're composing a blog post or coming up with an angle to promote the company's latest special. Maybe your inner creator is happiest when you're pulling together and accessorizing a really cute outfit for yourself or a friend. 

Creativity is so much more than being able to draw, or paint murals, or knit something teeny and adorable for your cousin's newborn. Creativity is imagination that leaks out your hands. Creativity comes from deep inside you, and it's a big part of what makes you, YOU.

I once read a sign that said, "To create is to imitate your Father." I do believe that, as we are told in Genesis, man was created in the Creator's image, and because of that, each and every person has the capacity for creativity within them--whether they believe it or not. And not only the capacity to be creative, but the spark of desire to be creative. It's there in all of us, even if in our busy modern world we've gotten ourselves into a bad habit of denying that we have that innate need to make something with our hands. 

There is an intense sense of personal fulfillment that comes from being creative. I can only imagine God sitting back after creating our whole gigantic incredibly complex world, and feeling that sense of satisfaction. The Bible tells us "and God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good," Genesis 1:29.

We get a little tiny human-sized spark of that marvelously deep fulfillment when we make something beautiful that brightens our world, search out an item that exactly meets our child's needs, or come up with a new solution to an old problem. We're being creative, and I believe our creativity cannot help but please our Creator (given, of course, that we are using it for good purposes--I have to say, I've read some really creative emails from scammers lately!)

The next time you are tempted to say or think, "I'm just not creative," I encourage you to stop and remember that we are created in God's image and that includes a fabulous imagination with which to view the world and work within it. You are His precious masterpiece, a poem He has written on His hands (See Ephesians 2:10 and Isaiah 49:16). Go let some of that imagination leak.

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