There is no room for shelves in your heart

There is no room for shelves in your heart.

As I was entering prayer, the Lord brought a thought into my mind. “There is no room for shelves in your heart.” As I prayed, I saw dark wooden stiff shelves placed in chaotic, haphazard way driven into my heart and they hindered its movement. Immediately I was appalled. What a horrific idea to have these intrusive, ugly objects in my heart. I shuddered.

“What am I doing, Lord? Why are there shelves in my heart?”

“When you insist on keeping unforgiveness and every detail of wrongs committed against you. You decide to install shelves in your heart and that is what it looks like. It violates your heart and hinders the movement and purposes of your heart. I created your heart to beat with the grace and blessings I designed for you.”

That made sense to me and led me into a deep need to repent and forgive. After a time of repenting, He surprised me with more, when I asked, “What should we keep in our hearts?” (Secretly thinking He would say people.)

“Your heart has no place to hold anyone, including yourself. Love deeply and release them to Me. It is not your responsibility to try to control them. They have a choice to accept your love or reject it. And they have the choice to accept or reject My love. Love deeply and release them to Me. I will work out what is best for them and for you. Rest in that and catalog no lists of wrongs. It is false responsibility and sin to believe that if you hold them tight enough they will love you and follow Me.”

***

I frustrate myself with my difficulty in forgiving and letting go of the details of past hurts. My brain is, unfortunately, very well trained in documenting detail and remembering circumstances. God’s vivid illustration makes it obvious how detrimental this is.

I’m asking the Lord to help me set down my pain and remember His grace.

·         To set down my pain, and remember that He has forgiven me of much.

·         To set down my pain and invest time in contemplating the goodness of God.

·         To set down my desire to “help” those I love by directing and controlling them.

If I truly understood His abundant love, glory, and sovereign wisdom, I wouldn’t squeeze my loved ones to death. I would pour out my heart in gratitude and awe of His goodness, and hopefully provide a testimony of surrender to those God gave me. I have to admit I’m a work in progress on this one.

When He spoke about me trying to hold a person in my heart out of a place of deep love and desire for all the goodness of God to pour out on them, I thought He would say that was a righteous thing to do. I certainly thought it was righteous and loving. But He has a wiser plan for me, to love them deeply and not hold them as my own but to release them to their Creator and gentle Master. It is so hard to remember that our children are not ours but the Lords.

This will take a mind-set shift, but I am confident that God is more than capable of accomplishing this in me and in you. He will never leave us lacking when we submit to what He deems best. He will give us all we need to accomplish the task that He set before us.

“I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return]” (Philippians 1:6, AMP)

I joke when I say I hope it doesn’t take until He returns to submit to this command to give those I love to Him, but if it does, so be it. I give myself over to the purposes He has for my heart because I know they are better than my own.

Prayer for you and me: Lord, let me overwhelm me with Your goodness. Increase my awe of You so that I might let go of the things that hinder and violate my heart. Let me release Your grace and kindness out on everyone that You have given me to love. I need You. In Jesus’ name. Amen