How Did You Handle Their Heart?

How Did You Handle Their Heart?

Yesterday, I took a walk in the woods while praying with a prayer team for a charitable organization.

As I rounded the bend, the Lord stopped me to ask a question.

“How did you handle her heart?”

Instantly, I knew who He was talking about. I had been in a sticky, emotional conflict with another Christian. It was this woman’s heart that He was interested in discussing.

“Daughter, I want you to understand that how you handle another person’s heart tells you the level of respect you have for the blood of Jesus Christ.”

I stood still, pushed mute, and took in ragged breaths. Tears streamed down my face while He continued.

“Father God, considered their redemption as worthy of the blood of Jesus.”

I didn’t push unmute and tell the rest of the prayer warriors what had just transpired. I let the gravity of His words penetrate my heart.

The Lord asked me the question, ‘How did you handle her heart?’ to pierce my busy and chaotic mind. To quite literally stop me in my tracks and mark the moment as significant. To impress upon my heart, the need to reflect on my actions. And to judge whether those actions were worthy of His name. As a Christian and an ambassador of Christ here on earth, we must consider our high calling to represent His name. We rarely understand the weight of this calling. I know I don’t. I let these important testing moments go by without the correct amount of reflection. Therefore, I often short-circuit my chance to improve my walk with Him.

Confession time:

• I must confess that on other days, I would have failed this poignant question.

• I would’ve bulldozed through their hearts to protect my own.

• I would’ve made sure that my self-righteous, haughty actions were portrayed as being more important than the other person’s heart.

Thank God, in this particular incident, the Holy Spirit helped me take time in between to pray and then to return emails, texts, and phone calls.

He helped preserve relationships to protect the hearts of two women He deemed worthy of dying for.

It is really hard to consider the hearts of the people we interact with, with the same gravity that the Lord weighs the worth of their hearts.

He sees their heart as such a precious thing, while we deem our possessions, or our status, and the opinion of others, above the protection of another person’s heart.

We somehow drop treasure into mud holes while we protect fleeting rubbish with our last dying breath.

Does your heart bring any remembrance of someone that the Holy Spirit worked with you for you to answer them with the peace and wisdom of Christ?

Does your heart bring into remembrance a time when you chose harsh words? When you chose self-protection and self-righteous condemnation instead of his gentle love.

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Col. 4:6, NIV)

Prayer for you and me

Lord, I need you every moment to help me navigate misunderstandings and outright sins against me, and yet still choose love. Help me view the blood of Christ with the level of authority and respect that You, Father God, give it. Please forgive my failures in Jesus’ name, amen.