By: Carrie Bantz
Alright people, we have a problem. So get ready, buckle down, and allow yourself to hear these words of truth that might cause you to rethink the way you look at this magical thing we call the heart.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-17
As women of faith, it seems like we are constantly being encouraged to “guard our hearts”. Now what does that really mean?
Before I understood the power and significance of the heart, I looked at guarding my heart in a very selfish light. I used to have thick walls up, thinking I am only going to allow myself to feel x, y, and z. Vulnerability? Longing? Intimacy? Woah, not going there.
Boy, was I wrong.
This is a growing problem for us, as emotional beings. When we start thinking that relationships aren’t worth it, too hard, and might cause us pain, we shut down. We begin to deaden the desires that the Lord put in us to have relationships with one another, and above all, with Him.
With these desires come passion, and we serve a passionate God. A God so passionate that he sent his son to endure physical, emotional, and spiritual pain on levels that we cannot fathom out of His love for us. A God that is so passionate about his church that he flipped tables out of pure anger.
We have a Father that created emotion to be a beautiful thing, not something to avoid at all costs.
Now all this emotion, passion, and desire stem from one place: the heart. Ever wonder why the bible loves talking about the heart? It is because the heart is the very core of our being, the place where Jesus resides and the spirit leads. When we begin to refuse to feel emotion and desire out of fear of getting hurt, we begin to lose heart.
And friends, this is the biggest problem of all.
Our beautiful and loving Father knew that this would be a huge problem, and he did something about it.
Jesus is the perfect illustration of the way our hearts are designed to operate. He came to this bitter world full of hatred and loved like no one ever had and ever will. He opened himself up to people and loved them with a kind of vulnerability that is incomprehensible to us humans. His love was so great that even when he asked forgiveness for the very people that caused him utter agony on the cross.
Jesus didn’t lose heart, he renewed it.
With his death on the cross, he beat everything that we are guarding our hearts from. With his death, he created a new heart in each of us, a heart that is capable of containing a fragment of the love that our Father has for us. And a fragment is more than enough.
So no longer do we have to live in fear of feeling something that our hearts were designed for. We can walk through this life with our arms and heart open to relationships that the Lord wills for our lives. We don’t have to be afraid because we have a victor that gives us an eternal hope.
A hope that looks our temporary fears in the face and says, “What else you got?”
Carrie Bantz is a sophomore marketing major at Miami University. She loves to write, sing, and lead. She is currently studying abroad in Luxembourg. You can read her blog, Carried by the King, and follow her travel endeavors on her Instagram, @carriebantz.
