Valentines And Hearts

Will you be my Valentine?  This day is meant to remind us of love and hearts joined together in friendship and commitment. Our life in recovery also has much to do with our heart, and love for one another, and friendship, and commitment.  God desires to have a deep and satisfying personal relationship with us.  God has shared His heart with us, invited us to share our hearts with Him, and generously expressed tenderness and kindness towards us.  We’ve often been too busy with our own agenda to give much attention to God’s offer of friendship.  We’ve been too focused on wrongs done to us, hurts suffered by us, and painful memories that give us an excuse to continue in the destructive habits of our addiction.

Many cards and gifts with hearts on them are exchanged with friends and loved ones on Valentine’s Day.  As we celebrate Valentine’s Day, it’s a wonderful opportunity to think about, and respond to God’s offer of love and friendship.  God is offering us a beautiful heart – a healed and forgiven heart – a heart we desperately need to replace our broken and wounded heart.

“I’ll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean. I’ll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I’ll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that’s God-willed, not self-willed. I’ll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27 MSG)

 Without God, our heart truly is a heart of stone.  It’s filled with revenge, with hateful anger, with resentment, with bitterness and self-righteous judging. It’s been scarred for too long by broken tapes of hatred and condemnation.   There’s no “fixing” that stuff.  We really need to hand over that dead and dried up heart and exchange it for one that is living and soft and real. 

 

Prayer:  Loving Father, I give You my heart today.  Remove this heart of stone that is filled with resentment and bitterness.  Give me a new heart that is gentle and forgiving.  Amen

 

 

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