God gave him another heart

I have become accustomed to the type of Morgan Freeman narration in movies these days. Shawshank redemption comes to my mind immediately. The narrator helps us get outside the story and view the ground from above. The same thing happens throughout the Old Testament. There is a fascinating part in Scripture where Saul is anointed King over Israel. In the scene, between Samuel and Saul, a flask of oil is used to pronounce a blessing on the life and reign over Saul. After the anointing Samuel, speaking as from the Lord, shares some of the things that Saul will experience in the midst of becoming king. After the list of accomplishments and future deeds, the narrator stops and we get back to the action of the film, so to speak. "When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart." 1 Samuel 10:9. In a nutshell, this was my experience of having my first child. I was given a new heart.  

I remember that call from UPenn hospital in Pennsylvania. My brothers’ voice changed. His voice got deeper. His newborn daughter, Rosabelle, seemed to have the same dramatic influence on him. I even remember when Jonathan had Owen. There was a deep freedom and joy that careened from his voice and cadence. And it really does this. Our children change our cadence, and they change our rhythm. We may not really know how much, but let’s fess up, they do.  And it was the same with me. I was changed. I felt like it would last. I felt like I would always remain changed. And I have. But I also have not. And that is where the question comes in? Does God change our hearts, or do our experiences change our hearts? If we rely on Scripture as a guide, it seems quite clear. "God gave him another heart." Yes, the experience was probably pretty radical, but, deep within that experience, God was the principle action. 

Likewise, in my experience of being a dad. I have slumped back in my chair. In other words, I have gone back to work. I have let myself creep back into those hidden places, the hidden rooms that tell me to forget. Everything in the culture forms us to forget about God. Everything in our life tries to convince us that God is not real, that since God is invisible, God is not with us. And I have come to see over these years, that God is very much with us, and often God travels around in the bodies of our children.

What am I forgetting though? I am forgetting that first day. I am forgetting the radiance of God’s love. I am forgetting that "God changed my heart" just like God changed Saul's heart. God is primarily a heart surgeon. God does not like stubborn oxen. Imagine if we told a doctor, before he operated on us, "Hold on sir, how can I trust that you are going to treat me well, how can I know that you are going to try to heal me? Jesus wants us to submit, just as we submit to the knife of a doctor. In order to get my gal bladder removed, I had to trust that the doctor was going to take it out with skill and with care. But in order for the doctor to operate, we must be humble. Jesus puts us in a situation where it demands us to relinquish our will. As the great "doctor" if you will, and he has come to "set the captives free." Jesus wants to free us from something deeper than our health issues. Jesus wants to free us from a bigger issue. We actually have a God issue. We were made, and we were created by an awesome God, but we often do not know how to relate to this God.

Because we cannot bridge the gap between our creator, and ourselves, we come up with all sorts of ways to cope. But there is nothing better for us, than when Jesus comes in with His knife and simply bridges the gap of our lives. The distance between ourselves, and our God, is the gap of sin. Sin is the separation we feel that stands between ourselves, and the person we want to be, and the God that beckons to cross that gap. And so rather than get dirty with God, we just play human, and try to keep God at an arms length. We all have roles. I am not just a father, or a chaplain. I am a brother, a son, a good friend, maybe even an enemy. And because I am a husband, I get to experience this immense joy of bringing forth a child.

            And I think lots of men have experienced the same thing. I believe they experience this wonderful trauma of childbirth. But some of our hearts are not changed. We stuff it away like winter clothes or our wallet. We let the world tell us to refrain from rejoicing in our "changed heart," despite the fact that we know that there is something dynamic growing in its soil. For some reason, we chose to remain enslaved to our past rather than embrace the "new heart." We are told to forget the words God said over us originally, “And he created them, and said it was “very good.” We settle into our routines. And so my question, throughout this book, is this, “How can we let that initial magic remain with us?” How can we stay changed as men? How can we admit that our hearts have been changed? All we need to do is admit the truth. 

It is simple. And once we allow God to change our hearts then we can admit that God says that "we are very good.” As men, we are so shackled to false intimacy, pride, deception, and evil eyes. We look at pornography more than we do at the mountains. We cling to control. Why do we do this? We want intimacy without the cost. We want to bridge the gap, but we use the wrong tools. We want to feel connected, while remaining aloof. We do not even want to have our hearts changed. And that is what I am fickle to write about. And as I write these words, I am trying to convince myself, and convince you, to continue to reflect on how God has changed you. Gazing on God I can see how far He had to go to get my attention. He got my attention over and over again. And He got my attention first on the cross, but then He got my attention again when I got married. And then, again, when He gave Anna and I a little girl. But then I sit back and have to ask, "Why does God keep trying to get my attention?" Why cant He just get my attention once, and then be done with it? I guess its just the nature of things. The more I realize that I am dead, and unable to manufacture my own faith, the more I realize that Jesus plants His faith in me as His gift. I can try all I want. But the truth of the matter remains, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Thanks be to God for constantly coming back to me, for getting my attention over and over, and for bridging that gap that I never could bridge myself. Praise be to God for that.