Thoughts on the Weak Heart

"My heart is in a weak place right now."

These words from a friend the other day stuck with me. Strange thing is that this isn't a bad thing necessarily. In fact, I think it's quite a good thing a lot of times. I've shielded myself from a lot of evil lately, just kind of ignored some of the bad stuff that goes on in the world. I've tried for a long time to understand that pain and hurt are necessary in my spiritual walk, that God wants to heal me of those things and wants to be my solace, but I'm still young and afraid of pain. I struggle with the idea of people being both good and bad at the same time.

The whole idea of black and white is, well, kind of grey. Sometimes I feel like there is only black and white and sometimes I feel like there's a lot of halfway, in the middle stuff. What I know is this: the human heart is inclined towards evil. That's pretty evident all throughout the Bible. Strange though, that there's also lots of talking about the heart being a good thing, inclined toward good stuff, righteousness and all that.

It's best summed up like this, if I can even sum up something I don't totally get: We are evil, inclined towards evil. God's grace He bestows on His people make us good and make us clean. Still being human, we still do evil sometimes, but we are covered by God's grace. It makes sense hearing it and saying it, but in practice, I still tend to believe people are either good or bad, desiring righteousness or evil, one or the other, never both. See, the odd thing is that with unsaved people, I get it. But for Christians, myself so very much included in this, I feel like we should know better and that we ought to be inclined towards good all of the time if we're saved and the Holy Spirit lives in us. But experience tells me that this is not true. Either that or no one I know is saved.

All that said, my heart is also in a weak place right now. God is wanting to teach me that we can't do anything apart from Him and His grace, but I'm resisting. I've quoted John 15 before, it talking about us being the branches and Jesus being the Vine and that's what God is trying to instill in me, I think. I understand it at times, others I don't. Adam was talking last night at the end of worship at Frontline and for some reason, something clicked with what he said. He was saying basically how we are evil and imperfect, but God is Holy, and that's what's important. God is bigger and different than anything we can imagine and He can do great and perfect things through imperfect people simply because He has the power and He is holy. My heart is in a weak place because that's where we best receive what God wants to show us.

God is holy. God is love. Those are the only important things. Those two things mean a whole heck of a lot more than we can understand.

To surmise, I'm having trouble dealing with imperfection. Black and white is easier to get, but humans aren't simple. God's trying really hard to get me to rely fully on Him and I'm trying really hard to not need Him. It's becoming clearer and clearer that I have no real choice, though. Oh God, let David's psalm be on my lips. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.

Love,
Colton