Defrosting Your Heart
Good morning. It is Monday, January 24, 2022. Jeanette Stark here.
Wow was it cold this morning when I left the house around 5:30! Dark, thick ground fog and 28 degrees. I took it nice and slow to town.
As I sat in my car waiting for my windshield to defrost, I could not help but think about all the ways Jesus has worked in my life.
My windshield, ever so slowly, began to defrost. It started in the middle and began to work its way up and out. Slowly the white of the ice crystals melted and minute by minute I could see a little better. After about 5 minutes it was safe enough to begin my journey. There is no way I could have driven out of my driveway, let alone down my road, if I had put my car in gear the moment I started it. I would not have been able to see a thing.
It reminded me of the verse from 1 Corinthians 13, “for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face…”
How many times have we got it wrong concerning our vision of who God is?
How many times in our life have we not been able to see the road in front of us?
How many times have we tried to forge ahead without waiting for that clarity that only God can bring?
How many times have we wanted to “just get going” but God has not defrosted the ice crystals of our heart and mind enough for us to be of any good?
For myself, I would say too many. However, looking back on my journey, I can see how little by little, God has worked His way up and out and slowly melted the ice away from my heart. God’s not done with me! Not by any stretch of the imagination. I am a work in progress. “…Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12 NKJV
The opposite can also be true. We can have the knowledge and clarification that comes from knowing scripture. But if we do nothing with that knowledge, are we any better?
James talks about being doers and not hearers only.
“Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” James 1:21-27 NKJV
We cannot do it on our own, but with God on our side, we cannot fail if we put our trust in Him.